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Photo Gallery

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Object: M101, Pinwheel Galaxy

Telescope: 12" Meade LX 200 GPS

Camera: Meade DS Imager PRO II

Description: Part of a group known as the M101 group. It's about 24 million light years away and has a diameter of about 170,000 light years. this picture is composed of 30-30 second exposures.

Object: M104,The Sombrero Galaxy

Telescope: 12" Meade LX 200 GPS

Camera: Meade DS Imager PRO II

Description: At a distance of about 50 million light years this is a popular object for amateur astronomers. It has a bright central bulge and a dark cloud band around the center.

Object: M8, The Lagoon Nebula

Telescope: 12" Meade LX 200 GPS

Camera: Astrovid StellaCam II

Description: This is a diffused nebula about 5,200 light years away. This is a very bright, easy to see nebula. Many new stars have been born from the material in this cloud.

Object: M42, The Orion Nebula

Telescope: Orion 80mm ED Apo

Camera: Astrovid StellaCam II

Description: At 1,600 light years away it is the brightest nebula in the sky and can be seen with the naked eye. I t covers about 4 times more of the sky than the moon. It is one of the most observed objects by astronomers because it's so close and for it's new star formation. The camera I used for this picture is black and white. I used red, green and blue filters then combined them with Picture Window to make this color photo.

Object: M63, The Sunflower Galaxy

Telescope: 12" Meade LX 200 GPS

Camera: Meade DS Imager PRO II

Description: M63 is about 37,000,000 light years from earth. It is a spiral galaxy with a grainy texture that is in stark contrast with a galaxy like M64 (page 3) that has a smooth appearance.

Object: M20, The Trifid Nebula

Telescope: 12" Meade LX 200 GPS

Camera: Astrovid StellaCam II

Description: Located 5,200 light years away in the plane of the Milky Way, this defused nebula is divided into four sections by a dark cloud of dust and gas.

Object: Supernova sn2008r

Telescope: 12" Meade LX 200 GPS

Camera: Meade DS Imager PRO II

Description: Every time I set up, I always try to get at least one picture of a supernova explosion. This particular nova is a class 1A which is useful in determining the distance to the galaxy it's in. Supernovas are identified by "sn" followed by the year it's discovered, then "a" for the first one found that year, then "b" for the second one, and so on. After going through the alphabet once, you use "aa", "ab", etc. There are many other galaxies in this photo. They appear as small fuzzy objects.

Object: M51, The Whirlpool Galaxy

Telescope: 12" Meade LX 200 GPS

Camera: Meade DS Imager PRO II

Description: This is a favorite galaxy for the amateur astronomer because on a good night you can detect it's spiral arms, even with a smaller telescope. There are actually two galaxies in this photo. The smaller one, probably a satellite galaxy , is called NGC 5195 and has become gravitationally attached to one of the spiral arms of the larger.