The Orion Nebula

The Orion Nebula is one of the easiest nebulas to find in our night sky. It is best viewed in the Northern Hemisphere during the winter. Looking directly below the belt of the Orion constellation with a wide field lens will produce an excellent view.

The star trails that are visible in this image are the direct result of not having a star tracker, which is what makes astrophotography with a Dobsonian so difficult. This happens because during the 10 second exposure I took this image in, the Earth rotates enough to create these star trails.

Saturn

Saturn looks great through a telescope with enough magnification and aperture no matter the quality of your skies. The image above was taken by taking multiple videos of Saturn drifting across the view of my telescope. Then I stabilized Saturn to the center of my screen with PIPP and stacked it in Registax. With enough time and practice, these types of images can be possible.

Jupiter

Jupiter, very similarly to Saturn, is very bright in our night sky no matter the quality of your skies. I took this image the same way I did Saturn when Jupiter was very near opposition, meaning it was closest to us as Earth is passing in between Jupiter and the Sun.

The Blood Moon

The Moon, one of the easiest, but also one of the prettiest targets through any telescope in the night sky, turned red here as it passed behind the Earth’s shadow of the Sun during the lunar eclipse of 2022. This image was taken with a long exposure of about 3 seconds.

The Hercules Globular Cluster

This star cluster located 25,000 light years away containing several hundred thousand stars was difficult to find at first, but has become easier with practice. It is found in the Hercules cluster in the northern hemisphere’s summer sky. This image was a long exposure of about five seconds.

Andromeda