Needle Galaxy 🪡- a beautiful edge on spiral seen almost perfectly side on from our viewpoint here on Earth. That bright central bulge is packed with stars, while the thin dark lane is dust blocking the light behind it, giving it that striking needle like appearance. #astro

I would simply like to point out that space science is quite literally ONE OF THE THINGS THAT ACTUALLY MAKES IS GREAT! Defunding it will make us, well... not so great anymore, which is dumb AF. (I say this notwithstanding all the other general stupidity floating around the White House.)

So we went to war - err...conducted a "military operation" - to degrade Iran's nukes and leadership. And the Iranians got/demand: A more hard-line leadership, Strait of Hormuz $2,000,000 per ship toll, all U.S. military leave region & no sanctions. That about right? And that's "winning"? Huh.

This bird looks like a real life Muppet to me.

#Waxing #Gibbous #Moon Date: 2026 03 27 Time: 19:10:12 UTC Altitude: 56° 53' Distance: 371 130 km Phase: 72% Nikon Z8 iOptron Rumak 150 Exposure: f/12, 1/125s, ISO-400 Focal Length: 1800 mm #astronomy #astrophotography #craters

#Waxing #FirstQuarter #Moon Date: 2026 03 25 Time: 18:56:22 UTC Altitude: 63° 18' Distance: 365 549 km Phase: 50% Nikon Z8 Skywatcher 200P Exposure: f/5.9, 1/125s, ISO-100 Focal Length: 1200 mm #astronomy #astrophotography #craters

Mare Crisium - the "Sea of Crises" - is a dark, oval basaltic plain in the Moon’s northeast. It formed from an ancient impact that then filled with darker lava. It is even visible naked eye from Earth! (Better thru a telescope.) The Luna 24 mission landed here, which returned lunar soil to Earth.

NGC 2264, 90 minutes, Seestar S50. This region of sky contains what's known as the Christmas Tree Cluster, and if you flip this image upside down, the "cone nebula" is at the top of the "tree" and the bright star is kind of near the base. It's a star forming region about 2,500 light years away.

M1 - The Crab Nebula. This is a composite of RGB data from 2026 plus Ha and Oiii data from 2024. To my surprise, the Crab Pulsar is visible in the image. Details in this blog post: astronomy716.blogspot.com/2026/03/m1-c... #space #astrophotography #astronomy

Barred Owl Pair spending some quality time together away from the nest. This was shortly after the one on the right took a bath in the creek. Loved watching this pair this year. 🪶

I hope I continue to always be amazed at the images a mere $500 telescope can capture from my backyard in just a few hours of time. Set up my Seestar sometime after 8:30 pm last night. Carefully levelled, aligned, etc. Aimed at M42. Let it capture 1.5 hrs of data. A few editing tweaks & "Voila!"

New Moon occurs at 1:25 UT (now) on 19 March 2026. Start of lunation 1277. 🌟 The next few days remain a great time for evening stargazing. Download The Evening Sky Map (PDF) (skymaps.com/tesm/) and enjoy exploring the Universe with your eyes, binoculars or a telescope! 🔭 #stargazing #space

Here's the other galaxy in my Askar 120APO first light image. Review of the scope: www.youtube.com/watch?v=r-YX... This is a combination of H-alpha from a dual narrowband filter and RGB from uv/ir cut filter. #astronomy #astrophotography #space

Reads the news. * waves hands vaguely around in all directions * [opens mouth to speak] [closes mouth] Sigh....

Well, we cancelled our solar eclipse trip to Iceland. I am disappointed, but in the big picture, it's a better decision for us not to go. Anyway, here's a photo from the 2024 eclipse.

3.1415927

Well, that's some good sized hail.

Check this out!

Good morning good people of BlueSky. It's the day in America when we set our clocks forward an hour, because despite telling time for centuries by where the Sun is in the sky, we think we can "save" daylight (from itself? Who knows!), so we change clocks forward. Welcome to Daylight Stupid Time.

Happy #Stunday from #Iceland 1. Reynisdrangar. 2. Rif. 3. Kirkjufell. 4. My lensball in the garden. #EastCoastKin #ECK

Here's an HOO look at the Orion Nebula (M42). I've been wanting to shoot this for years but never had a horizon line that would cooperate with me. #astrophotography #photography

I started learning the acoustic guitar solo for "To Be With You" by Mr. Big a week or so ago. My fingers are actually cooperating and I may even be able to play it at speed in a few weeks. I played with a metronome tonight and it went pretty well, but I am still a good 20 beats per minute slower.

I had to go into the office this morning but I managed to catch a picture of the jellyfish from this mornings launch.

NGC 2174, also known as the Monkey Head Nebula in Orion. This image used the DBE (Dynamic Background Extraction) function on the Seestar app while stacking, and it helped with the moonlight present that night. But it processed a bit towards red. About 2 hours of data captured with a Seestar S50.

Sol has a few interesting sunspots rotating into view. Got a solar filter telescope? Check 'em out.

The Mare Humorum region of the Moon, tonight. The 68 miles (110 km) crater Gassendi is the large feature with the central mountain peak otersecing the mare. Telescope: Explore Scientific FCD100 ED Triplet Refractor Camera: Google Pixel 7 thru Explore Scientific 24mm 82 degree eyepiece.

🌟 The March 2026 edition of The Evening Sky Map (PDF) is now available for download at skymaps.com/tesm/. The PDF features easy-to-use sky maps for the northern & southern hemispheres, and for the equatorial regions. Please share, and enjoy exploring the Universe! 🔭 #stargazing #space

Cacti of Alabama Hills Silver Cholla (Cylindropuntia echinocarpa) Cotton-Top or Many-Headed Barrel Cactus (Homalocephala polycephala or Echinocactus polycephalus) I love how their binomial name describes exactly how they are~ Echino ≈ spiny Poly ≈ many Cephalus ≈ head 🌿

In 1995, I spent the equivalent of about $3000 in today's dollars to get a Schmidt Cassegrain telescope & film camera with dreams of astrophotography. Spent MANY hours to net a few barely useful prints of the Moon. Last year I spent $500 on a Seestar and captured this last night after an hour.

Just brought the new refractor outside because it was uncharacteristically clear (especially given how recently this telescope arrived at my house!). The Moon: Clean, crisp and zero false color. Jupiter & moons: Bright, sharp, also no false color The Orion Nebula: Color! In a 100mm scope! Wheee!

Me: Hey, it's clear out today. I'll take my new telescope out and look at sunspots on the Sun! The Sun: No, you won't....

Here is a quick #doublecluster taken with the #seestar S30, last time it was clear. I am currently trying to get this with the #Redcat71 but the weather isn’t playing nice #Astrophotography

Tonight's view of the waxing crescent Moon and Jupiter (with Io and the Great Red Spot). 🔭

With all the downtime I had this winter, I was starting to think I’d fully miss out on the Orion targets. Either way, after 2 months of hardware problems here’s the Horsehead! I’ve always wanted to shoot this one but just never had a good opportunity in the pnw. #astrophotography #photography

I went and did a thing.

Since I've got a bunch of new followers thanks to a quickly snapped photo of the Moon and Mercury last night that somehow blew up, here's an image of the Orion Nebula taken with a Seestar S50. I was glad to be able to edit this to bring out a bit of the blue/green that is easily seen visually.

I managed to capture the Moon and nearby Mercury this evening with my cell phone.

Learned to play Plush by Stone Temple Pilots on acoustic tonight. So that was a win.

First time using equatorial mode with my Seestar S50. Took me nearly an hour of muttering under my breath and wanting to throw the thing into the fence before I read I needed to recalibrate. Okay then. But even after a "good" eq alignment I'm only at 7.5 minutes of frames after 20+ minutes.

My submission for #SuperbOwl Saw this owl back in 2016. Scared the heck out of me too, because when I first noticed it I was, at most, 10-15 feet away. My initial reaction was that it was some kind of wild cat, until I looked more closely (after backing away).

The Sun has fun things happening today. Sunspots woohoo!

My friend who does astrophotography (and has gotten quite good at it) had a 24x36 glass print made of M33, but it didn't meet his expectations so he's having it redone. He gave it to me today. If you look closely in person, the minor flaws are visible. But for my office? It's going to look great.

That's ummm.....that's a really steep temperature drop, isn't it?

It's not easy to get this cat to look at a camera while I'm taking a photo.

I'm calling this a White Christmas. Also grateful I shoveled a lot of the snow from my driveway into that exact spot weeks ago to have this tiny remnant of the white stuff.

Merry Christmas to all who celebrate

My wife yesterday: "We will stay focused and get the blinds at Lowes." My wife while at Lowes "Hey, look at that aurora generator! It's only $20." Me: "Well, I hope it looks good...." The aurora generator on our ceiling:

Today is the solstice, shortest day of the year. It is also 3 months before it really starts warming up again, so... Enjoy the bit of extra light each day because that's all you're getting for a while. Happy to be a beacon of joy for you this morning. You're welcome. 😁🤪

I normally am pretty optimistic but I really think 2026 is going to be worse than 2025. I hope I'm wrong. And that's from someone who very much enjoys being right.

It was slightly cool overnight. And by slightly, I mean brutally. And by cool, I mean fricking freezing. It was brutally freezing last night. To be clear, I intensely dislike any weather below 20F.