Great Lakes Star Gaze

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,... […]

I recently tested the William Optics RedCat 91 APO refractor. This is the fourth RedCat I’ve used in the RedCat series—five if you count the two versions of the RedCat 51 (version 1 and version 3). With a healthy aperture, fast optics, and a super flat Peztval design, the William Optics RedCat 91 has a... […]

This article was last updated on February 25, 2025. The ZWO ASI2600MM Pro mono is the much-anticipated monochrome version of ZWO’s popular ZWO ASI2600MC Pro dedicated astronomy camera. It houses a 26-megapixel Sony IMX571 back-illuminated sensor and some seriously impressive specs. This camera uses a highly sensitive, cooled, monochrome CMOS sensor in the APS-C format. Its... […]

NASA Science at Commodity Classic Hyperwall Schedule, March 2-4, 2025 Join NASA in the Exhibit Hall (Booth #839) for Hyperwall Storytelling by NASA experts. Full Hyperwall Agenda below. MONDAY, MARCH 3 11:30 – 12:00 PMNASA Earth Science at Work for American AgricultureDr. Karen St. Germain12:00 – 12:30 PMConnecting NASA Ag Resources in A Virtual Agricultural […]

Engineers at NASA’s Ames Research Center in California’s Silicon Valley, Bohdan Wesely, right, and Eli Hiss, left, complete a fit check of the two halves of a space capsule that will study the clouds of Venus for signs of life. Led by Rocket Lab of Long Beach, California, and their partners at the Massachusetts Institute […]

A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket carrying Intuitive Machines’ Nova-C lunar lander (IM-2) soars upward after liftoff from Launch Complex 39A at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida on Wednesday, Feb. 26, 2025. The lander is set to land on the Moon on March 6. The NASA science and technology demonstrations aboard the lander will, once […]

If the aurora won't come to you, go to it. The story of my quest to see the polar lights. The post North to the Aurora! appeared first on Sky & Telescope.

The space company Intuitive Machines is making their second bid for the Moon, which includes the launch of the Polar Resources Ice Mining Experiment 1 (PRIME-1). The post Second Intuitive Machines Mission Heads to the Moon appeared first on Sky & Telescope.

Martian dust is red because of rust — but the rust on Mars is not the same iron oxide mineral found on Earth. The post Why Is Mars Red? appeared first on Sky & Telescope.

 Anybody still coming here?

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 […]

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 […]