February 25, 2017
This is comet C/2015 V2 (Johnson), currently located in the constellation Hercules, which means I have to stay up until at least 1 AM to photograph it. It is currently about magnitude 10, which means barely visible even with binoculars. This is 24 one minute exposures at 500mm, f4.5 @ ISO 3200, stacked in Deep Sky Stacker.
Markarian's Chain, a group of galaxies in Virgo.
This is M46, a star cluster near the constellation Puppis. In it, at the left edge, is a very small planetary nebula, NGC 2438. NGC 2438 has an apparent diameter of only a little over 1 arc minute, or sixty arc seconds. To give you an idea of how small an arc second is, imagine the width of a dime as seen from 2 kilometers or 1 1/4 miles away. So, it is pretty small as seen from earth, but it is really about 4.5 light years in diameter. At the center is one of the hottest stars known.
M 106 and neighboring galaxies. I've done this before but added more data.
Owl Clover, from yesterday, first one I've seen this spring.
A Lupine, lots of them along the roads.
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