Milky Way
This is a wide-field shot of our very own Milky Way Spiral Galaxy! Within this shot, you can see a few nebulae including M8 and M20 (Lagoon and Trifid, respectively). Our solar system lies on the Orion arm. We are about 8 kpc from the center of our galaxy, where a supermassive black hole lives. In total, the disk is approximately 30 kpc across and around 300 pc thick. It takes the Sun about 220 Myr to complete a single orbit, so it has completed about 20 orbits since it’s birth. What a beauty!! I piggybacked my DSLR to the OTA I was using to take this picture!
Date: May 4, 2019
Location: Fort Davis, Texas
Camera: Nikon D5300 with lens
Mount: Celestron Advanced VX
Guide Scope: Orion 50mm Mini
Guide Camera: ZWO ASI 120MM
Subframes: 1x60s
M51
Here is M51 the Whirlpool Galaxy in the constellation of Canes Venatici (near the famous asterism the “Big Dipper”)! It is nearly face-on, which gives us a clear view of its parts. You can see the red bulges in both galaxies, which indicates an older population of stars. The blue arms indicate a population of young, hot, & blue stars, which do not live very far away from the arm they were born in. This galaxy is filled with lots of gas and dust, and it is interacting with it’s companion galaxy, NGC 5195! M51 has a redshift of 0.00154 (it is the lengthening of the wavelength of spectral lines caused by motion away from the observer). What a beauty.
Date: May 4, 2019
Location: Fort Davis, Texas
OTA: Stellarvue SVT 80
Mount: Celestron Advanced VX
Guide Scope: Orion 50mm Mini
Guide Camera: ZWO ASI 120MM
Camera: Nikon D5300
Subframes: 30x300s
Temperature: 43.5-48.3 Degrees
IC 1805
This is the Heart Nebula (IC 1805)! It is an emission nebula in the constellation of Cassiopeia the Queen (if any of you are familiar with the sky, it is the ‘W’ shaped constellation in the North). An emission nebula is a cloud of ionized gas that emits its own light at optical wavelengths (those wavelengths that can be perceived by the human eye, 400nm-800nm). I want to try to image this again soon!!
Date: July 14, 2018
Location: Ohio
Camera: Nikon D5300
OTA: Explore Scientific 80mm ED Triplet
Mount: Celestron Advanced VX
Guide Scope: Orion 50mm
Guide Camera: ZWO ASI 120MM
Subs: 11x300s at ISO 1600
Darks: 10
Bias:15
Eastern Veil
This is the Eastern Veil Nebula in the constellation of Cygnus the Swan! This is a part of a supernova remnant that is about 1470 light years away from the Earth. A supernova is a gigantic explosion of a high mass star at the end of its life. These occur because the star is no longer stable due to running out of fuel (nuclear fusion – H to He). A star is in balance between two forces: gravity pulling the star together and pressure from nuclear fusion in the core pushing outward. However, when this fuel runs out, gravity takes over and the star collapses, resulting in the explosion we see. Our nearest star, the Sun, is way too small in size to see this fate. Instead our Sun will most likely expel its outer layers and become a planetary nebula/white dwarf! Any questions? Feel free to ask in the comments! 
Date: May 11, 2018
Location: Prude Ranch, TX
OTA: Orion ST-80
Mount: Celestron AVX
Lights: 22x300s ISO 1600
Darks: 32
Bias: 15
Flats: 15
Temp: 50-55 F
Camera: Nikon D5300
Guide Camera: ZWO ASI 120MM
Guide Scope: Orion 50mm
M8 and M20
M8 {Lagoon Nebula} and M20 {Trifid Nebula} in the constellation of Sagittarius. The Lagoon Nebula is about 4100 light-years away, while the Trifid Nebula is 2000-9000 light-years away. M8 is actually quite large; it is 110 light-years wide and 50 light-years tall — an area on the sky that is over three times larger than the size of the full Moon! There are many uncertainties regarding the size and distance of M20. These two make for a beautiful pair to image.
Date: July 12, 2018
Location: Ohio
Telescope: Explore Scientific 80mm ED Triplet
Mount: Celestron Advanced VX
Camera: Nikon d5300
Guide Scope: Orion 50mm
Guide Camera: ZWO ASI 120mm
Subframes: 20x300s
Darks: 32
Flats: 0
Bias: 20
Temperature: 60 Degree F
Barnard 72
Barnard 72 – the Snake Nebula!! It is a dark nebula in the constellation of Ophiuchus. A dark nebula is a region that is not luminous, but we can observe it because it obscures the light from other sources. I’ve wanted to image it ever since I saw an image of it! So excited! 😀
Date: May 10, 2018
Location: Prude Ranch, Texas
Camera: Nikon d5300
OTA: Orion ST-80
Mount: Celestron Advanced VX
Guide Scope: Orion 50mm Mini Guide Scope
Guide Camera: ZWO ASI 120MM
Subframes: 22x300s, ISO 1600
Darks: 32
Bias: 15
Flats: 15
Temperature: 52-54 Degrees F
