Minima of Algol

 

Algol is in the lower left; it is the right corner of the isosceles triangle.  It should be about as bright as Mirfak, Alpha Persei, the brightest start in the frame, on the right.  Instead, it's barely brighter than the left corner of the triangle, Gorgonea Tertia.  This is Algol at its minimum, at 8:38 EST, 2-21-26, or 2:38 UT, 2-22-26. The image is a phone pic, and the gradient to the west was pretty bad, made worse by the 23% Luna just to the southwest of the frame.

Mercury Luna Conjunction, Feb. 18, 2026

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Caught this from the airport in Gainesville, Florida, with a Pixel 9XL Pro.

Jupiter, 2/6/2026 (close to midnight CST)

 

 This is the best of the night, 1250/5k with the QHYiii485C through the CFF 290 at f/20.25. I'm a dabbler in planetary thus far.

 

And here is Jupiter with Europa, best 2.5k/5k. 

Luna (Jan. 28, 2026)

Luna was 81% illuminated on the evening of Jan. 28, 2026, when I took first light with my Canon R8 through the TS 102 SD f/11. This is literally the third image taken with the camera. 
 

Saturn & Titan (11-22-2025 at 7:13 CST)

Here is Saturn with the rings edge-on. I tried to catch Titan crossing the planet's face, but by the time the sun set and the telescope and camera were set up, Titan had just slipped off.  This is best 500/2000 with the CFF 290 Classical Cassegrain at f/13.5 and QHY 5iii485c. If you look closely, another moon, Rhea, sits just to the left of the rings. Dione lurks out beyond it in the shadows.

NGC 253, Summer 2025

This is 26 hrs 40 min of LRGB data from Starbase's AFIL-40, 16" f/9.3 RC Optics, from Chile.  I've always wanted a nice color image of NGC 253, and I enjoyed working with this data. The L for this image is 85x600s, and the RGB is about equal numbers of 600s subs.  That much data on a target this bright made all the choices interesting but not terribly difficult.

M29 as a Test

I'd like to get back to imaging.  This is a second test image using my 203mm f/4.9 reflector with the Starizona Nexus 0.75x reducer. This is only 39 minutes of 180s exposures with the Player One Uranus C Pro. It's not perfect, but it's getting closer. The reddish haze from the left side of the image is not a gradient but H-alpha glow.