Eagle eating lunch under a heavy, blue cloud. The sun shines on the islands and the mainland; not here. New blog post: https://wanderinweeta.blogspot.com/2025/01/somewhere-sun-is-shining.html #VancouverIsland #Eagle #Birds #Clouds #Skywatch

Mysterious Objects Spotted in US Skies! SUV-sized unidentified flying objects have been seen over New Jersey, New York, and Pennsylvania, sparking investigations by the FBI and local law enforcement. Are they aliens, spy balloons, or drones? The FAA has banned drone flights near key locations. Stay tuned for updates! #UFOs #newz #MysteryObjects #SkyWatch Read more: https://www.theregister.com/2024/12/12/mystery_objects_us/

From a location in Estes Park, under a clear, half-moon lit sky, between 9:00 and 9:02 local time I saw a bright red object with no aircraft strobe appear suddenly almost directly overhead, then extremely rapidly silently cross the sky in a southeast direction. I was able to track the object until it went below the horizon, bearing 160°

Nothing shows up on flight radar. Is there any open source radar that might have shown the object? NOAA weather radar is down at the moment. Could it have been #starlink?

#SkyWatch #Astrophotography Last night was clear for a change and Cassiopeia was visible to the east all night. So I captured over 7 hours of exposure of Navi, a bright star in the Cassiopeia constellation. My real subjects, however, were IC59 and IC63, the Ghost of Cassiopeia. The Ghost is not an easy subject because both nebula are faint and dark and the bright presence of Navi makes them particularly challenging to image.

#SkyWatch #Astrophotography The Elephant's Trunk Nebula is a dark, dense globule of interstellar gas about 2400 light years away in the Cepheus constellation. The bright sinuous rim of the trunk is the surface of the gas cloud being illuminated by the bright star on the right edge of the image. I captured the 100 three-minute (5 hours total) exposures that make up this image overnight 2 nights ago.

#SkyWatch #Astrophotography #AuroraBorealis My favorite photos from last night's spectacular show in New Hampshire, USA

#SkyWatch #Astrophotography #LunarPhotography Before last night's spectacular light show put on by the Aurora Borealis, I was excited to capture the crescent moon with still enough sunlight to see a hint of the rest of the lunar disk. This is called earthshine because the disk is being illuminated by sunlight reflecting off the Earth's surface. What a night!

#SkyWatch #SpringInNH After the storm

#SkyWatch Weeks of overcast skies with no chance for #Astrophotography but it's a clear day today after a huge spring snowstorm yesterday. #AnotherSunrise #SpringInNH

#SkyWatch #Astrophotography #LunarPhotography #Seestar50 Last night's waxing half moon

#SkyWatch #Astrophotography The Blackeye Galaxy aka M64 is a relatively isolated galaxy 17.3 million lightyears away in the Coma Berenices constellation. This means that it took the light recorded in this image 17.3 million years to reach my camera's sensor. The 41 three-minute exposures for this image were challenging to process in order to pull out the distinctive dark dust lane near the galaxy core that gives the galaxy its name.

#SkyWatch #Astrophotography The Seagull Nebula is a cloud of dust, hydrogen, helium, and other gasses 3700 lightyears from Earth near Monoceros and Canis Major. The head of the Seagull contains a triple star system HD53367 that is emitting red hydrogen. The blue in this area is from dust and gas reflecting the light of HD53367. I captured 47 two-minute exposures of the area using my AT102ED telescope with a UV/IR filter so I could capture both the emission and reflection nebulosities

#SkyWatch #Astrophotography I find the Owl Nebula aka M97 to be one of the most fascinating objects in the night sky. It is about 2030 lightyears away from us. It formed about 8000 years ago when a star exploded, quickly expelling its gaseous fuel to form 3 concentric shells. Its central star is now a white dwarf about 1/10 the size of our Sun. I captured 60 three minutes exposures a few nights ago and processed them in PixInsight to create this image.

#SkyWatch #Astrophotography M81 aka Bode's Galaxy is 12 million lightyears away in the Ursa Major constellation. Its diameter is 96,000 lightyears and it contains 250 billion stars. I captured 45 thirty-second exposures for this image with my #Seestar50

#SkyWatch #Astrophotography Since I got my #Seestar50 telescope in October, I have captured about 500 exposures of the area around Alnitak, the easternmost star in Orion's Belt. The exposures are of different lengths (10, 20, and 30 seconds) and have a variety of framings. As an experiment, I decided to stack and process them all together. The Horsehead Nebula is the only part of the area that all of the exposures had in common so this image is the result of my experiment

#SkyWatch #Astrophotography I used my Canon L-series 100mm lens (no telescope!) to capture this large star-forming area in the Auriga constellation. The image shows the Flaming Star Nebula and the Tadpoles Nebula as well as two open clusters of stars, M38 aka the Starfish Cluster (lower middle) and M36 (lower right). M38 contains 100 stars, is about 290 million years old, and is about 3480 lightyears away. M36 contains 60 stars, is about 25 million years old, and is about 4340 lightyears away.

#SkyWatch #Astrophotography We are entering what is known as galaxy season because most nebulae are below the horizon for most of the night in the northern hemisphere. This image is Bode's Galaxy and the Cigar Galaxy captured a few nights ago in 60 three-minute exposures. The two galaxies are in Ursa Major 12 million lightyears away. I love the red hydrogen visible in the core of the Cigar and in the spiral arms of Bode's

#SkyWatch #Astrophotography The Rosette Nebula is 5000 lightyears away and is 130 lightyears in diameter. Its mass is about 10,000 times that of our sun. NGC2244 is a young star cluster at its center that is forming from the gasses in the nebula. The cluster is creating stellar winds that are carving interesting shapes into the nebula. Last week, I captured 60 three-minute exposures and processed them last night with PixInsight.

#SkyWatch #Astrophotography I'm still working on getting full circles in my star trails. This is about 2.5 hours from two nights ago.