Astrophotography by the Numbers: 1,302 Hours Under the Night Sky
An interactive look at 94 targets, 28,744 light frames, 209 observing nights, and 1,302 hours of captured exposure—the data behind my astrophotography archive.
Read postBackyard photons, deep sky scale
NightSkyLens
Deep-sky images, observing notes, and workflow details from my backyard astrophotography setup, including the long project of imaging the Messier catalog.
26Finished images
8Blog posts
3Workflow articles
Featured targetFeatured target
M104 Sombrero Galaxy
A bright edge-on galaxy with a crisp dust lane and central glow, captured as part of the long-running Messier imaging project.
- Catalog
- M104
- Region
- Virgo
Image GalleryGalaxies, nebulae, lunar images, and catalog targets captured through my changing setup.
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How I Make ImagesHow I plan targets, set up the gear, capture data, and process stacked frames into a finished image.
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Sky MapSee where my images sit in the night sky, with object thumbnails, coordinates, and links back to the related notes.
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Latest target notes
The Pleiades and the Blue Dust They Borrowed
The Pleiades are famous for their bright blue stars, but the blue glow around them comes from something quieter: dust reflecting their light. This is the story of how that reflection nebula emerged across three versions of my image.
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New Telescope First Light: Seeing M51 in a New Way
This image marks first light with my new telescope, the Celestron EdgeHD 800, an 8-inch Schmidt-Cassegrain designed for longer focal length imaging.
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Beyond the Belt: Exploring Orion’s Nebulae
The Orion constellation is easy to recognize, marked by three bright stars forming its belt and a "sword" hanging below. What's less obvious is that this small patch of sky is packed with a variety of nebulae. That sword is home to the Orio
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Celestial Photobomb: Vesta and the Monkey Head Nebula
I set out to capture the Monkey Head Nebula (NGC 2174 in Orion) with my usual astrophotography setup, aiming for a gorgeous deep-sky image. I took 70 frames at 300 seconds each (about 6 hours total exposure) and stacked them to reveal the n
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Galaxy Portraits: A Collection of Distant Worlds
My wide-field telescope is well suited to large nebulae, but most distant galaxies appear small in the frame. Even so, long exposures and careful stacking have revealed distinct structure in a surprising range of galaxies. Every image in th
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