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My Latest Budget Astrophotography Build March 21, 2025

I recently assembled a budget astrophotography rig to capture deep-sky objects in my backyard. While I knew this system would be very capable, I was astonished by the quality of the pictures I took with it. Astrophotography (and photography in general) can be an expensive hobby with high-end equipment often costing thousands of dollars. While... […]

Trevor Jones

Choosing a Computer for Astrophotography Image Processing March 2, 2025

Choosing the right computer for image processing can save you a lot of headaches when you’re trying to process those jaw-dropping images of the night sky. Applications like Adobe Photoshop and PixInsight can really push a computer to its limits when processing astrophotography images, so what kind of specs do you need? Here’s a breakdown... […]

Trevor Jones

8 Deep-Sky Targets for Galaxy Season February 27, 2025

In the astrophotography realm, Galaxy Season refers to the period in Spring when the night sky offers up a buffet of incredible galaxies to observe and photograph. From early March until mid-May, the window of opportunity for night-sky enthusiasts to photograph a wide variety of galaxies is at its best. I don’t know about you,... […]

Trevor Jones

NASA Receives 10 Nominations for the 29th Annual Webby Awards April 1, 2025

Since it began in 1958, NASA has been charged by law with spreading the word about its work to the widest extent practicable. From typewritten press releases to analog photos and film, the agency has effectively moved into social media and other online communications. NASA’s broad reach across digital platforms has been recognized by the […]

Dacia Massengill

NASA’s SPHEREx Takes First Images, Preps to Study Millions of Galaxies April 1, 2025

Processed with rainbow hues to represent a range of infrared wavelengths, the new pictures indicate the astrophysics space observatory is working as expected. NASA’s SPHEREx (short for Spectro-Photometer for the History of the Universe, Epoch of Reionization and Ices Explorer) has turned on its detectors for the first time in space. Initial images from the […]

Anthony Greicius

Studying Ice for the Future of Flight April 1, 2025

Thomas Ozoroski, a researcher at NASA’s Glenn Research Center in Cleveland, takes icing accretion measurements in October 2024 as part of transonic truss-braced wing concept research. In the future, aircraft with long, thin wings supported by aerodynamic braces could help airlines save on fuel costs – but those same wings could be susceptible to ice […]

Monika Luabeya

SpaceX Launches Historic Polar Mission Fram2 April 2, 2025

A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket lit up the skies over the Florida Space Coast Monday night, with the last mission of March 2025. Aboard were four crew members with a unique goal: to reach a polar orbit around the Earth. The post SpaceX Launches Historic Polar Mission Fram2 appeared first on Sky & Telescope.

David Dickinson

April Podcast: Celestial Carnivores April 1, 2025

This month we’ll watch bright planets come and go, track down some celestial carnivores, and enjoy a splash of mid-spring meteors. So grab your curiosity, and come along on this month’s Sky Tour episode. The post April Podcast: Celestial Carnivores appeared first on Sky & Telescope.

J. Kelly Beatty

Tiny Disks Shed Light on Super-Earth Origins March 28, 2025

A team of astronomers has obtained high-resolution images of all known protoplanetary disks in the Lupus star-forming region. The post Tiny Disks Shed Light on Super-Earth Origins appeared first on Sky & Telescope.

Govert Schilling

Hello out there? October 12, 2021

Anybody still coming here?

Phil

Markarian's Chain in Virgo April 13, 2018

My own Hubble View! These galaxies lie between 10 to 50 million light years away. How many galaxies do you see? A pretty tricky part of the sky to image, really. You're utilizing almost your entire field of view with an 80mm scope, so dealing with all that comes with wide-field. This is the best […]

Phil

M51 Whirlpool Galaxy April 9, 2018

A nice clear night last night until around 12:30 when clouds rolled in. Managed to get this image of the lovely M51 Whirlpool galaxy. It lies around 23 million light years away and it is interacting with a smaller galaxy (yellow~ish bulge to the left). Three supernova (star explosions) have been detected in this galaxy […]

Phil

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