Clear skies have been few and far between with monsoon season upon us here in the Phoenix Valley, but I got out to a dark site last night and had a couple hours with fairly clear skies and just a little moisture haze. I love monsoon season with exception of the difficulty in finding a clear night for my hobby. ...

This wide image of the Lagoon Nebula actually contains a number of special deep sky objects.  This section of sky is 3 degrees wide, so imagine a slice of the night sky 3 parts out of the full 360 degree circle.  On the left, there is an open cluster called Webb's Cross (M21).  The Trifid Nebula (M20) shows beautifully...

This is an image I took June 24th, 2019 at a dark site about an hour from my house called Picket Post Trailhead.  It is about 5 miles from Superior, AZ.  The drive is not bad from anywhere in the Phoenix East Valley, but it dramatically improves contrast in astrophotography by getting away from the Phoenix light dome a...

I've been working on my Jupiter imaging, this is the best I've come up with so far. The animation is only 3 frames total, 10 minutes apart. So the rotation shows just how much Jupiter rotates in only 20 minutes! Trying to image a planet is like hand to hand combat with the atmosphere.  Think about heat waves rising from...

  Back on May 1st, I photographed The Whirlpool Galaxy (M51) and the interacting companion known as NGC 5195. This light originated about 25 million years ago only to land on my camera that night. It's almost incomprehensible how far away it is. In our night sky from the Phoenix East Valley, this is right below the last star on the...