Category: KPO Astrophotography

This is the Milky Way from Mesa Verde National Park in Colorado. There’s tremendous detail in this image! Here is an Annotated Version. That’s Jupiter there on the left, with the constellation of Sagittarius just to the lower right – it looks like a teapot. The upper left area is the Scutum star cloud. On the Read More …

Here is the North American Nebula (NGC 7000), and the Pelican Nebula (IC 5070), taken from Capitol Reef National Park in Utah. I used my iOptron SmartEQ tracking mount for this image. See this post about the portable astrophotography system. Click on the image for a larger version. Image Info Again, this image was taken Read More …

Here is Comet C/2020 F3 NEOWISE, taken with the KPO Reflector on July 19th, 2020, but this time it was taken with no light pollution rejection filter, so this is true color / white light. There was no color processing done on this image, aside from standard finishing. Note to self: do not use the Read More …

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 …