Horsehead, Alnitak, Flame, NGC2023 (processed Sept. 2026)

I haven't done any deep sky imaging in a year because my camera broke and the software I used became obsolete.  I've been waiting for the tech, the software, and my workload to stabilize. But when Lloyd Smith of Deep Sky West Remote Observatory let some files go, I had to give them a try.  It's been fun to work with superb data.  This is the Horsehead Nebula, of course; the star Alnitak on the left; the Flame Nebula underneath the star; and NGC 2023 just under the Horsehead.

Jupiter and Luna, Sept. 8, 2026

This was the view around 2:18 p.m. in Spring, Texas, through my TS102SD f/11 and Canon R8.  A few minutes later, the Moon moved in front of the planet!

Moon Over Jupter, Sept. 8, 2026

I set a goal to watch the moon cover Jupiter on the afternoon of Sept. 8, 2026.  I wasn't sure whether it would be cloudy and did not want to set up an equatorial mount if it was.  So I put my 102SD f/11 on a photo tripod and alt-az mount (pretty shaky) and tried to (i) film the coverup and (ii) then watch the uncovering visually.  I found the moon in the finder and then was happily filming while the coverup happened.  Here's the video with the shakes mostly edited out.  Then the clouds moved in.  Clouds covered the emergence of Jupiter from behind the moon; they cleared about five minutes after, when I got a nice view of the planet beneath a sliver of Luna.  Canon R8.