Pickering's Triangle
I haven’t been posting on the blog as much lately, mostly because I’ve been trying to get in the habit of putting my astrophotos on AstroBin . You can follow my work there for more photos. Read more...
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Wizard Nebula from home
After the Rocky Mountain Star Stare , I was eager to try setting up the new ED80 rig at home. The first subject I was able to shoot was the Wizard Nebula . Here is the result of two nights’ worth of data, shown here in the Foraxx palette . Read more...
Rocky Mountain Star Stare 2026
This year, I went to the 2026 Rocky Mountain Star Stare . Since this was five days and four nights, and it was right in the middle of a big week of Ardith’s tennis season, I went on my own. I debated bringing Cashew, our eight-year-old greyhound, but we decided she’d be happier at home. She loves sitting outside our van on her pad, sniffing the outdoor air for hours on end. But she…
going to RMSS 2026
I’m about to pack up the van for a trip to the 2026 Rocky Mountain Star Stare . Unlike almost every other trip I take, I’ll be going solo this time. Ardith has lots of tennis activities this week, including playoffs for one of her leagues. Cashew likes being with me, but it’s likely that the weather at the venue will be hot, which would mean that she would be shut in the…
Dark Sky Weekend at Sandstone Ranch
Last Sunday I went to a star party at Sandstone Ranch open space in Douglas County . Some good friends who live nearby went with me, and brought their Dwarf 2 (an older telescope very similar to my Dwarf 3). Read more...
Black Mesa in Galaxy Season
Last March, we were driving home from a fun van trip to San Antonio and Austin. Black Mesa State Park is on the way, or close enough. When we arrived in the late afternoon, it was practically overcast. The forecast had been mostly okay, but I was having strong doubts. I put the Dwarf out anyway, just in case. We ate dinner and hung out a bit, waiting for sunset to get closer. Once it was dark…
Iris Nebula Combining Multiple Sessions
In my last blog post I revisited the Iris Nebula . Here it is again, combining data from last year as well as the new data. It’s a mix of 45-second and 60-second subs. Read more...
Iris Nebula Returns
The Iris Nebula was one of my two favorite subjects from last year (the other being the Trifid Nebula ). So when the skies cleared a couple of nights ago, I was happy to see the Iris becoming possible to image at this time of year. Read more...
M 42 Combining Multiple Sessions
I decided to experiment with stacking in PixInsight, this time combining different exposure times and different gains on the camera. These pictures of M 42 were taken from my house, and from Lost Dutchman State Park in Arizona. Read more...
Bode's Galaxy from Black Mesa
In April 2026, I finally took the plunge and got a trial license for PixInsight. This is my first effort: Bode’s Galaxy, aka M 81. Read more...
Rosette Un-banded
I was bothered by the banding in yesterday’s post , so this morning I tried the “Banding Reduction” filter in Siril. It’s random experimentation at this point, but this was the best I could do in a short session. I think it’s a bit better. Read more...
Rosette Nebula Reprised
This is the same data as yesterday’s blog post , but I’ve been trying more things with Siril today. Read more...
first successful Siril on Dwarf3 data
I’ve been very slow to get started with processing, but I’m finally giving Siril a try. I had a couple of results which were hideous, but this one isn’t so bad. I’m attempting to take my MegaStack of the Rosette Nebula and process it into pseudo-SHO using VeraLux. Read more...
2025-02 Carpinteria State Beach
I have been slow to get these last photos out from our recent winter van trip. I wasn’t expecting to do any more observing, but a great night at Carpinteria State Beach presented itself. Read more...
2026-02 Guajome stay with images
We stayed in the Guajome Regional Park a few nights ago. It was a nice place, with lots of hiking trails and a good shower. The weather was also good enough to bring out the telescope for the night. Read more...
Lost Dutchman Whirlpool Galaxy
I missed this photo from my previous blog post . This is M 51, the Whirlpool Galaxy. Read more...
Lost Dutchman State Park January 29 through February 1
We went on a trip to the Phoenix, Arizona area, and then on to California. Lost Dutchman State Park is a wonderful place where we’ve stayed before, so we were happy to revisit. While here, three of our four nights had relatively clear skies, so I did some photography. Read more...
Astrophotos from Saint Vrain State Park
We camped last night at Saint Vrain State Park . It was cold, but very nice otherwise. With a Bortle of 5.9, it’s not much better than my house, but it has far fewer trees and other things in the way. I set out to capture three targets. Read more...
ZSH Autoload Functions
zsh has been my shell for a very long time. One feature I use often is autoload functions . They live in their own self-contained files, like shell scripts. But unlike shell scripts, they can modify your environment variables, non-environment variables, change your current directory, and so on. Read more...
Mosaic of Heart and Soul Nebulae
We had a clear night last night, but I wasn’t sure what to image. I finally decided to try a mosaic that covered both the Heart and Soul Nebulae. Read more...
Tadpole Nebula
I took three nights’ worth of data on the Tadpole Nebula last month. It’s been crazy around here, and I haven’t got around to posting this until now. Read more...
Apple Reminders in Calendar
I like that Apple shows the day’s reminders in their calendar app. But with the way I use reminders currently, it’s generally okay to let some reminders become overdue. If that happens, the reminders fall off the calendar. I made a quick and dirty shortcut to cover this case. It’s nothing fancy: it just lists all overdue reminders, lets the user pick some of them, then moves…
Flashcards in Obsidian
I’ve been using Obsidian for a little while. I’m not an organized person, so I’m always trying out new systems. Obsidian is a beast. When I read articles about choosing between Obsidian, Notion , and Logseq , it looked to me like Obsidian best matched my personality. One plugin it has is called “ Spaced Repetition ”, which can allow you to make your own flashcards.…
Christmas Tree Christmas
The clear skies last night were a nice Christmas present, allowing me to track the Cone Nebula all night long. The Dwarf 3 software recommends the “astro” filter for this target, and that’s what I did. I imagine I could probably get better results from somewhere less light polluted than my house, which is a Bortle 6.6 now. Read more...
Soul and Rosette with Astro Filter
There were some relatively clear skies from December 13th through the 16th. I decided to try using the Dwarf’s “astro” filter on two nebulae that I have captured previously with the “duo” filter. Read more...
Bad Weather
The weather has been horrible lately. We’ve had one good night (as predicted by Good to Stargaze ), but the chance of precipitation was too high for me to risk leaving the Dwarf 3 outside overnight. Other than that, it’s been all clouds. I really should buy PixInsight and start learning, but the holiday stuff has kept me too busy. Maybe soon. End of rant.
Making zsh Autocomplete Case-Insensitive
Way in the past, I’ve formatted my Mac hard drive to be case-sensitive, but that was a big mistake. I can’t remember exactly why, I just remember that lots of things were broken afterward. So for years I’ve been running in case-insensitive, case-preserving mode. Read more...
Horsehead with Astro Filter
It was a very clear night last night! At least at first… I picked three targets, starting at 8:07pm, 10:17pm, and 4:27am. The first two had no subs ruined by clouds. On the last one I had to delete 109 subs, leaving only 54 “good” subs. Even those were a bit off. Read more...
Mid-November Images
It’s been mostly cloudy lately, but there were a few passable evenings. I’ve recently imaged the North America Nebula, the Crab Nebula, the Pelican Nebula, the Dragonfly Cluster, and the Rosette Nebula. Read more...
Strong Aurora Last Night
We had some really good aurora borealis last night, even in light polluted suburbs. We were lucky that it was a clear evening, too. There might be good aurora tonight (2025-11-12), but it’s supposed to be much more cloudy. Read more...
Question Mark and Wizard Nebulae
I took some images of the Question Mark Nebula, NGC 7822, on October 21/22. Here are my initial results, processed on StellarStudio “auto” and Apple Photos “auto”: Read more...
Flaming Star Nebula
We had some good weather November 1st through 4th. I spent some time on the Flaming Star Nebula, C 31. There is one night’s worth of data that I couldn’t stack in with the rest, due to me using the wrong filter. For some reason, the Dwarf 3 doesn’t have C 31 in its atlas (or at least it didn’t then). So I focused on something else (sorry, I didn’t take good notes),…
Wizard and California Nebulae
We have had clear skies for a few days now, and I wasn’t sure what projects to take on. I’m mostly limited to northern targets due to the trees and houses around where I live. So, I decided to revisit the Wizard Nebula, and added the California Nebula for after the Wizard went behind the neighbors’ tree. Read more...
Space Koala Video on My Possible Upgrade Path
The Space Koala YouTube channel recently had a video on “making your own smart telescope”, and I found it extremely helpful. Read more...
Camping in Eastern Colorado: Helix and Northern Trifid
We needed a quick getaway, and decided it would be a good time to do some astrophotography from the road. Our original plan was to try North Sterling State Park , but Good To Stargaze predicted bad skies for most of the night. The Denver Astronomical Society’s dark sky site was showing a good forecast, so we went there instead. Read more...
The Crescent Nebula and M 31
Before our recent van trip to Austin, I took some shots of the Crescent Nebula and M 31. In Austin, I was happy to have good stargazing weather, so I took another night’s worth of data. And, on our trip home through Kansas, we had awesome observing conditions: Read more...
October 2025 Trip to Texas
We visited with my brother in Austin this past week (October 12 through 18). I wanted to stop at Black Mesa State Park in Oklahoma on the way there, but the skies were cloudy, so there wasn’t much to do astrophotography-wise. So instead we went on to Lubbock and slept at a Love’s RV stop. Seeing my brother was good. All was well with him. His self-driving Tesla is impressive, but not…
Retrying the Lobster Claw Nebula
Last night was clear, so I decided to retry the Lobster Claw Nebula. I know it’s a difficult target for my hardware, so I tempered my expectations. Here is the result: Read more...
Astrophotography Plans
I’ve been trying to get into astrophotography ( obviously ). Here is the plan I initially came up with. Read more...
The Ghost Nebula
I decided to devote last night to a better capture of the Ghost Nebula. I was able to image from Monsters’ Clubhouse, and I got a 0° deviation from my polar alignment, so I went for 60-second exposures. Here is the result: Read more...
Ghost Nebula, M 42, Horsehead, Comet Lemmon
Wormwood (my Dwarf 3) has been sitting atop Galaxy (my camper van) for about three days now. There’s been practically zero chance of rain, and the skies have been clear most nights, so there’s been no reason to take it down. Unfortunately, all of this imaging has been filling up its hard drive. Read more...
Coding Stuff from University Days
I’m hoping that this blog will be a place where I can share some of the weird, niche coding stuff that I do. This blog post will focus more on the weird side. A recent members-only special of ATP talked about computer science education. The part that really stuck with me was when John Siracusa talked about having a shared multiuser system that everyone logged into. Read more...
Patrick Starfish, California, Pleiades, and Horsehead
Last night I wanted to get more data from the Horsehead Nebula. I combined this data with data from September 26/27, and got this. Read more...
M 42 and California
It’s been cloudy and rainy for the last few nights, but last night we got a break. I started with the California Nebula. It was a bit cloudy at first. Here is the result of 577 subs, after removing 168 obviously bad subs due to clouds. StellarStudio “auto” and Apple Photos “auto”: Read more...
A Blog?
I’ve started a few blogs over the years, as I suspect many people have. They inevitably fizzle out. To quote Lo Pan, “Yet we all keep trying, like fools!” Read more...
Triangulum, Pleiades, M42, and Horsehead
Exciting nebulae are starting to rise early enough that I can get some imaging done on them! M 45 (the Pleiades), M 42 (the great Orion Nebula), and Barnard 33 (the Horsehead Nebula) are becoming possible for the first time since I’ve bought my Dwarf 3 (aka Wormwood). Read more...
Bubble Nebula
C 11, the Bubble Nebula, taken across two nights
Van Dark Mode
Date: September 14, 2025 at 07:50:11 PDT Weather: 58°F Cloudy Location: Eastsound, Washington, United States Yesterday I finally accomplished a goal that I’ve been pursuing since we got Galaxy, our Embassy Dolphin SL. I set up “Police Mode” and made it configurable via the menus that you can reach via the steering wheel. Read more...
Elephant's Trunk Nebula
two nights of data on the Elephant’s Trunk Nebula
Elephant, Heart, and Comet
The Elephant’s Trunk Nebula, the Heart Nebula, and a comet