Summer Milky Way

This is a 2 minute exposure taken with "hypered" film (film made extremely senstive to light through soaking it in nitrogen) through a 50mm lens on a camera "piggybacked" on top of my Schmidt-Cassegrain at Fort Davis, Texas . The bright "star" on the bottom of the picture is actually Jupiter.

NGC 253 (galaxy)

Although low on the horizon in northern skies, NGC 253 canstill be seen even in north Texas. It is a perfect spiral galaxy, very brgith, andcalled the southern sky's answer to the more famous Andromeda galaxy.

M65 (NGC 3593) and M66 (NGC 3628) (galaxies)

M65 is seen on the lower left and M66 is on the upper right of the picture. M65 has an estimated distance of about 98.8 million light years from Earth.

M101 (NGC 5457) (galaxy)

A tough galaxy to see well with an 8-inch scope since its light is so spread out. Its distance is controversial with estimates rangong from 3.9 to 13.0 million light years from Earth.

Omega Centauri (NGC 5139) (globular cluster)

Thisis another object that belongs to the southern sky it is the most impressive and largest globular cluster of all. It is bright enough to be visible to the naked eye. This picture was taken at Fort Davis, Texas. This objectg is about 17930 light years from Earth.

NGC 4565 (galaxy)

NGC 4565 is famous because it is the most "on edge" spiral galaxy visible from our vantage point on Earth. From a different perspective, it would be seen to be a spiral galaxy not much different from the Milky Way.

Sagittarius region

This rich area contains a variety of objects, including the Lagoon (M8) and trifid (M20) nebulas towards the bottom, and the Swan (M17) and Eagle (M16) nebulas towards the top. M24 is the dense collection of stars in the middle. M23 is to the right of M24 and M25 is to the lower left. Below M25 is M22.

North American Nebula

Obviously named for its appearance

M81 (NGC 3031) and M82 (NGC 3034) (galaxies)

Two galaxies in Ursa Major separated by a mere 38' of space. M81, a spiral galaxy, is below M82, an irregular galaxy, in the picture. The fuzzy object to the left of M81 is actually another galaxy (NGC 3077). The fuzzy object below and to the right of M81 is also another galaxy (NGC 2976).

M41 (NGC 2287) (Open Cluster)

A collection of about 100 pretty stars in Canis Major about 2300 light years from Earth. The cluster spans about 25-26 light years of space and can found below the bright star Sirius in the night sky.