I took this picture of the “Pacman Nebula” NGC 281 in Cassiopeia. More of my astrophotography hobby.

Took some more astropics last night with my new telescope. These are the best I’ve ever made. Here’s the Horsehead Nebula and the Orion Nebula.

This is Mr. McCluck. He showed up in our yard a few months ago and has been here ever since. Yes, we’re feeding him.

Some astropics I took last night from my backyard: On the left is the Orion Nebula (M42) and the Crab Nebula in Taurus (M1).

Fencing again after a nearly decade long hiatus!

I’m doing the docent thing today at the Hall of Human Origins at the Smithsonian Natural History Museum.

This the globular star cluster M2 in Aquarius. It lies outside of our galaxy, but orbits it. It’s about 37.5 thousand light years from us and contains about 150K stars. These are some of the oldest stars, like around 13 billion years old. 5/5

This is M31 the famous Andromeda Galaxy. At a distance of about 2.5 million light years, it’s the nearest large galaxy to our Milky Way and contains about a Trillion stars. As with most such galaxies, a supermassive black hole resides within the bright central nucleus. 4/5

This is M33, the Triangulum Galaxy. It’s about half the size of our Milky Way and about 3 million light years away. It’s one of my favorite objects to image because it presents itself face on to us and its spiral arms are clearly visible. 3/5

This is spiral galaxy M74 in Pisces about 30 million light years away. It’s close to the size of our Milky Way and contains something like 100 billion stars. 2/5

I’m enjoying a morning sitting at home with a cat in my lap and sipping coffee while watching birds visiting our feeders. So far I’ve seen … 1/2.

I took this during totality of the total solar eclipse on April 8, 2024.

Some of the best astropics that I’ve taken.

Comet C/2023 A3 (Tsuchinshan-ATLAS) taken at Gambrill State Park, Maryland in October 18, 2024. The anti-tail is visible in the deliberately overexposed reddish image. Photos by me.