One of these things is not like the other. Is that a smoke ring among the heavens? Tonight I captured the Ring Nebula through my telescope. This is what remains after an average-sized star loses its outer layers of gas at the end of its life

This evening’s lovely waxing crescent moon thru my telescope

Tonight’s lovely waxing crescent moon from my backyard

The Double Cluster in Perseus, as seen through my binoculars tonight: two open star clusters consisting of hundreds of stellar members. The age of the clusters is a few million years, which is rather young by cosmic standards

The night sky forever beckons me with solitude and stillness from a chaotic and uncertain world

This morning’s conjunction of the waning crescent moon with Venus above my house. The bright star Regulus also made an appearance to create a nice tight trio

Saturn through my telescope last night. Its rings are nearly edge-on to us right now, so they look remarkably thin. Reminds me of an olive on a toothpick 🫒🪐

Star trails in the northern sky. As our planet rotates, all the stars appear to circle Polaris the North Star (the dot on the left of this snapshot). The straight lines here are just planes/satellites photobombing me. This is a 90-minute exposure captured tonight from my backyard

The first quarter moon thru my telescope right now 🌓

Today’s spotted sun, brought to you by my (safely filtered!) telescope ☀️ According to NASA’s website, “Sunspots are cooler regions on the Sun caused by a concentration of magnetic field lines”

I got Venus & Jupiter before dawn this morning, but Mercury eluded me this time, trapped within the bright twilight sky

This evening’s fat waxing crescent 🌙 thru my 🔭

Yesterday evening’s slender waxing crescent 🌙