The moon is a deep red from being low in the sky with wildfire smoke. My favorite details in this light are the floor of Pentavius and the wrinkles in Mare Crisium. This is a composite of five images with my C8.

It was a smoky night but the planets still show up bright. No detail on Mars with it getting so small – I haven’t had a night of excellent seeing yet to fine-tune my collimation.

Although the weather said the skies were clear there was a high-altitude haze of wildfire smoke. The only star I could see in the sky was Arcturus. Venus and the young moon were beautiful and close in the sky, and I knew Castor and Pollux were nearby even if I couldn’t see them. A 15-second […]

After finishing observing the supernova in M101 I decided to point my scope at M13 for a quick image before packing up for the night. I’m always amazed by the incredible density of resolvable stars in this cluster.

SN 2023ixf was detected on the 19th, and I was able to image it on the 20th. It easily outshines all of the local stars in the image. I took a total of an hour of exposure to render the galaxy cleanly. It’s a tough target with low contrast over the light pollution. Below is […]

I’ve decided to start out each observing session with an image of Venus. It should be interesting to compare them over time as the apparent size and phase changes.

Seeing was pretty rough again, but I aimed at the planets that were out, Virgo A (with visible jet from the core!) and a few other random targets. I wasn’t sure what to look for so just started pointing at low-4000s NGC objects. Mars is just a red dot in this seeing and distance.

Had the big scope out but seeing was awful.

Decided just to use the little scope this time around. I attempted to resolve the minor planet Haumea put didn’t get it. I need to try hunting for dwarf planets and asteroids with the C8 on a night with good seeing.