After rejection a year ago, the Scientific and Technical subcommittee of the United Nations Committee on the Peaceful Uses of Outer Space (COPUOS) has agreed to add the issue of satellite constellations as an agenda item for further discussion. It will be addressed as ‘Dark and Quiet Skies, astronomy and large constellations: addressing emerging issues…
The Winter Star Party is held under Bortle 3 skies in the Florida Keys during the February new moon. It is hosted by the Southern Cross Astronomical Society and has just celebrated 40 years of operation. This premier star party boasts an appealing climate and a unique location for star lovers. I’m not sure there…
A dual narrowband filter is an astrophotography filter that allows only two specific bandpasses of light to pass through. The most common wavelengths isolated in a dual narrowband filter are h-alpha (656nm) and OIII (500.7). This type of filter is intended to be used with a color astronomy camera, or, a ‘one-shot-color’ (OSC) camera. When…
In this post, I’ll break down how to photograph the Orion Nebula, one of the most spectacular deep-sky objects in the night sky. While it may just look like a smudge to the naked eye, Orion is the nearest, large star-forming region to Earth at just 1,500 light years away. When you take a picture…
The SeeStar S50 is an all-in-one smart telescope that makes astrophotography easy. While its main goal is to deliver electronically assisted views of objects in space, the pictures it takes are pretty darn good. If you thought that smart telescopes were just “expensive toys”, I think you’d be surprised to see some of the incredible…
I recently photographed a galaxy in the night sky with my telescope, using a new approach I have never tried before. The technique is not new, but it is something I’ve never actually tried on a galaxy before. Not only did it produce one of my favorite images I have ever captured, it revealed a…
The James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) has just released a new image of the Crab Nebula using its NIRCam (Near-Infrared Camera) and MIRI (Mid-Infrared Instrument). This supernova remnant lies about 6,500 light-years from Earth in the constellation Taurus. The Crab Nebula has fascinated astronomers for many years since a ‘guest star’ was first documented by…
While I have several videos discussing this topic of deep-sky astrophotography how-to on my YouTube channel, I realized it was time for a thorough walkthrough of my entire current process (2023) of capturing deep-sky images with a camera and telescope. This article aims to accomplish that goal by providing a step-by-step roadmap to follow to…
The William Optics GT 81 (Gran Turismo) is an apochromatic refractor telescope with an innovative internal focus design (WIFD). William’s ‘Gran Turismo’ line of refractor telescopes have been around for many years, and are well enjoyed in the amateur astrophotography community. This telescope features an impressive full-frame image circle (44.4mm), which is an important specification…
The Ghost Nebula (Sh2-136) is a reflection nebula located in the constellation Cepheus. This object lies very close to the star cluster known as NGC 7023, and the Iris Nebula. The Ghost Nebula spans roughly 2 light-years across and appears as a yellowish-brown color in photographs. Its appearance is indeed ‘ghostly’ which is the origin…
The Perseid meteor shower, also known as the Perseids, is considered the most spectacular and most reliable meteor shower of the year with 50 to 100 meteors per hour. In 2023, the Perseid Meteor Shower coincides with the New Moon phase. This means that it will be possible to see even more meteors in the…
Have you ever wondered what the same deep-space object would look like using two very different telescopes? I thought this was a great concept for a video (see below) and a real eye-opener for those looking into upgrading their telescope for astrophotography. For this experiment, we used two high-quality refractor telescopes that were very different…