Author: Dave Hearn

Here is the Lagoon Nebula in Sagittarius, otherwise known as Messier 8. This collection of gas and dust is a stellar nursery, lying 4300 light years away. The bright open cluster to the right of the nebular core is NGC 6530, a group of very young stars. Click on the image for a larger version. Read More …

This is Comet C/2020 F3 NEOWISE, taken with the KPO Reflector, on July 18th, 2020. The comet had a decent morning apparition down here in Central Florida, but remained very low over the eastern horizon. When it moved into the evening sky, the comet’s altitude began to increase, and was finally accessible by the KPO Read More …

This is Messier 16, more popularly known as the Eagle Nebula in Serpens, taken by the KPO Reflector. I didn’t quite frame it correctly, so it’s a smaller image. This image includes the famous “Pillars of Creation” captured by the Hubble Space Telescope. The Eagle Nebula (catalogued as Messier 16 or M16, and as NGC 6611, and also known as the Star Queen Read More …

This is Messier 20, otherwise known as the Trifid Nebula, a emission / reflection nebula in Sagittarius. The Trifid can be found a couple degrees above the famous Lagoon Nebula. The object is an unusual combination of an open cluster of stars, an emission nebula (the upper, red portion), a reflection nebula (the lower, blue Read More …

This is a sweet little rig. Over the past few weeks I have been working on this astrophotography rig, with the end goal of using it as a grab and go setup. There is a possibility of a trip out west (Colorado, Utah, Arizona) coming up, so I needed a rig that was capable of Read More …