I gathered these photons using a newly available telescope located near South Alpen, France. If you’re curious, it’s the center telescope picture here. For my first test of using this large telescope, I exposed “luminance” images of the Pelican Nebula (no color for now). From Wikipedia, The Pelican Nebula (also known as IC5070 and IC5067) [...]

A Kansan at heart, I like the looks of Messier 63, aka Sunflower Galaxy. I used Jim Misti’s raw data to follow a PixInsight tutorial, and this is the result. I keep saying this, but Real Soon Now I will resume using photons that I have gathered myself. It appears that my favorite LightBuckets site [...]

Here is another of my practice images using raw image data generously offered by Jim Misti. One of these days I hope to be acquiring my own photons again. But in the meantime, here is my version of the Andromeda Galaxy, about the size of our Milky Way and on a collision course with our [...]

Data acquisition by Jim Misti On August 24, 2011, a supernova torched off in the Pinwheel Galaxy, only 21 million light-years away. This makes it one of the closest supernovas seen in decades. The guys and gals who track these things dubbed it PTF 11kly, a type of white dwarf detonation that usually progresses in [...]

I worked hard on processing this image, because the data was acquired on a still, dark night in New Mexico in April and was some of the highest quality data I acquired while I was still able to use LightBuckets remote controlled telescopes. I processed the data last month, finally got tired of looking at [...]

I keep plugging along, trying to get better at putting together astronomical “pretty pictures.” My raw material was acquired using the LightBuckets observatories in New Mexico, as well as from data made publicly available. I have discovered that there are two software approaches to digital processing of astronomical data. The well-traveled path uses Photoshop CS [...]

This spectacular galaxy, designated Messier 51 and popularly called the Whirlpool Galaxy, is probably one of the most photographed celestial objects. I remotely snapped it about a year ago using a telescope located in a mountain valley near Rodeo, NM. The image below is my second attempt at processing that data, partly to determine if [...]

Galaxy Messier M66. Go here for details. Well, maybe not the last. The outfit that rents remote-controlled time on several telescopes is closing down. Details at the Lightbuckets site, at least while the web site is still online. I first used their equipment on June 5, 2010, and since then I have accumulated lots of [...]

[10] Say not, “Why were the former days better than these?” For it is not from wisdom that you ask this. [11] Wisdom is good with an inheritance, an advantage to those who see the sun. [12] For the protection of wisdom is like the protection of money, and the advantage of knowledge is that [...]

Here is a colorful, even garish, image of the Flame Nebula with the Horsehead Nebula lurking behind. I’ve had fun with this one, because it has led me up a few more steps on the Photoshop learning curve. These nebulae are part of the wintertime Orion constellation scene. If you want to know more about [...]