Welcome to my Astrophotography Blog!

This is a journal of my adventures in astrophotography -- taking images of distant celestial objects. Please look around and feel free to add your comments, questions, and critique to any of the entries by clicking the "comments" button on the bottom of each entry -- or just say "howdy!

And don't forget to click on the images for a larger view!

So choose either the Red pill or the Blue pill and follow me down the wormhole....

JOhn

Comanche Springs Star Party

Comanche Springs Star Party
Doin' my thang at the Comanche Springs Astronomy Campus (where I often become a "red ghost")

Dallas Sky

Rancho Venado Sky

Atoka Sky

Camanche Springs Sky

Sunday, January 4, 2009

How Does Orion Keep his Pants up?

With his Belt!

The Orion constellation is the most identified group of stars in the heavens. It also filled with tons of "eye candy" -- the most noted being M42 (the great Orion nebula) and the Horse Head nebula. But Orion is actually FILLED with all sorts of intersting objects.

Orion's Belt is easily recognized by naked eye as three bright stars close together in Orions "mid-section". For this image, I wanted to focus on this belt and bring out all the dusty bits around this area. There is a LOT to see here!

You will notice the Horse Head and Flame nebulae are in the bottom left corner. They were the focus of another recent image I took. But this time all focus is on the Belt.

This image was taken over the Christmas holidays at Rancho Venado. It is 3 hours of exposure with the Takahashi FSQ 106 ED at F/3.64

I am hoping to continue plundering Orion's treasures and create a large mosaic of the area.