Dances with Skies Astrophotography

09/24/2025

The meadow was hushed beneath the blanket of night, flowers folding in and the world turning quiet, except for the soft hum of crickets and the glow of the stars above. 🌌✨

Pooh and Piglet sat side by side on a little blanket, their eyes lifted toward the great sky where the moon shone bright and the stars looked close enough to touch.

“Funny thing about the night sky,” Pooh whispered, “it makes you feel very small, but also very glad to be here.”

Piglet leaned closer, because sitting near a friend always makes the world feel a little less big. And together, without needing many words, they breathed in the magic of the moment—the kind of magic that happens when you pause long enough to notice how beautiful everything already is.

Pooh thought about how stars are like friends—some you see every night, some only once in a while, but all of them are there, shining, even when you cannot see them. And so he smiled, his heart full of quiet happiness, and said, “What a very good sort of evening this is… when one remembers that even the darkest skies are filled with light.” 🌠💛

09/23/2025

“Piglet,” said Eeyore quietly, his eyes on the great round Moon, “do you ever feel very small when the world feels very big?”
Piglet thought for a while. “Yes,” he said softly, “but then I remember that being small is not so bad, when you are sitting beside someone who sees you.”
Eeyore gave a slow nod. “Perhaps the Moon is far away. But perhaps it is also very near… because it shines on us all the same. Maybe that’s how it tells us—‘you’re not forgotten.’”
Piglet leaned a little closer. “And if the Moon forgets me,” he whispered, “I think you would still remember.”
“I would,” said Eeyore. “Always.”

09/22/2025

“There are days," said Pooh, looking up at the night sky,
"when the world feels terribly big and I feel terribly small.
But then I remember—if I hold on tight to something I love,
like a balloon, or a pot of honey, or the paw of a friend—
suddenly the world doesn’t feel so frightening at all.

Perhaps," he went on thoughtfully,
"we don’t need to reach the stars to find happiness.
Perhaps happiness is simply in rising a little higher than yesterday,
carried by the things that make our hearts light.

And if, while floating, you happen to see the moon smiling back at you,
well… that’s a very good reason to smile in return."

— A.A. Milne, Winnie-the-Pooh

09/21/2025

“‘It’s strange,’ said Eeyore quietly, his eyes fixed on the stars, ‘how the world feels so big at night, and I feel so very small in it.’
Pooh thought for a moment, then placed the jar between them. ‘That’s why we sit together,’ he said. ‘Because when the world feels too big, it helps to have someone right beside you who makes it feel just the right size.’
Eeyore gave a slow sigh, but not quite the usual gloomy one. ‘Perhaps,’ he murmured, ‘the stars aren’t there to remind us how small we are, but to remind us how love stretches further than even they can shine.’
And Pooh, who didn’t always understand things in the way Eeyore did, nodded anyway, because he understood enough: that having a friend beside you on a quiet night made the sky a little less lonely, and the heart a little more full.”

09/18/2025

“Some journeys are measured not by how far you walk, but by who walks beside you. On quiet nights beneath the stars, when the world feels wide and the path ahead is unknown, the simplest comfort can be the warm hand of a friend. With them, the darkness isn’t so heavy, and even the silence feels full of meaning. Life’s greatest treasures are not found in riches or crowns, but in these gentle moments—when you realize that you are not alone, that someone cares enough to walk with you, step by step, no matter how long the road. For under every sky, whether bright with sun or lit with moonlight, true friendship is the lantern that makes the way brighter, the burden lighter, and the journey infinitely more beautiful.”

09/16/2025

"Eeyore sat quietly in the tall grass, the night wrapped around him like a soft blanket, while tiny fireflies painted the darkness with their golden light. He wasn’t looking for answers, nor was he trying to fix the heaviness that sometimes lingered in his heart. Instead, he simply let himself be still, watching the gentle glow drift and dance around him. For the first time in a long time, he realized that even in the quiet, even in the shadows, there were little sparks of beauty waiting to be noticed. Perhaps life didn’t always need to be cheerful or loud—it could also be tender, soft, and quietly kind. And so Eeyore breathed deeply, and for that one moment, he wasn’t just the gloomy donkey—he was part of the magic of the night, surrounded by light, reminded that even the heaviest hearts can find peace when they pause long enough to see the fireflies."

09/15/2025

Sometimes, the quietest nights hold the brightest wonders. Up on the rooftop, with the snow resting gently and the air so still, Pooh and Piglet lifted their eyes to the endless sky. Stars blinked back at them, scattered like secrets across the dark, each one carrying a story too far away to tell, but close enough to feel.

“Pooh,” Piglet whispered, his voice as small as the twinkle above them, “there are so many stars… do you think they’re watching us too?”

Pooh thought for a moment, his round face glowing softly in the starlight. “I think,” he said slowly, “that the more you look at them, the more they remind you of all the things you might have forgotten—like hope, and dreams, and how very big the world is, but how very safe it feels when you’re not alone.”

So they sat, side by side, saying very little. Because sometimes, you don’t need words to see more. You only need a friend, the sky, and the quiet reminder that wonder is always waiting—just look up.

11/09/2024

Happy Carl Sagen Day! His speech should be translated and played in every school around the world!

Pale Blue Dot is NOW AVAILABLE as an audiobookhttps://www.audible.com/pd/Science-Technology/Pale-Blue-Dot-Audiobook/B06XTJN84LAs seen in 2014's COSMOS: A Spa...

10/26/2024

This is a closer look at C/2023 A3 (Tsuchinshan-ATLAS)

It’s shot from Vernon, BC off of my deck. I had originally planned to drive out of the city on Oct 22, 2024 where the skies are less washed out from light pollution but the skies didn’t look like they were going to clear off. I didn’t want to pack everything up and drive out of town just to have cloudy skies. So I set up my Astrophotography rig on the deck with the thought that I’d be ready to at least get some lesser quality shots if the skies cleared off.

And they did! So, I fumbled through the process because it had been a while since I had used my rig. I ended up getting 5 decent shots before the neighbour’s roof got in the way. I’m glad I got those precious images though because I have been waiting for a clear night ever since and it doesn’t look good for the next week either.

This was taken with a ZWO ASI533MC (cooled to -10 degree C to help minimize noise because often subtle details need to be brightened and you don’t want any noise to be brightened with them) and an 80mm f/6 telescope, mounted on on a Skywatcher eq6-r pro, which is controlled by a mini computer and software called an ASIAir. The ASIAir can be linked to a phone, tablet, or computer. It receives an image sent from a mini camera attached to a 30mm f/4 guide scope to track the stars then it sends a signal to the mount every second to tell it which to move to keep pointing in the same direction as well as keep the same orientation of the frame. This is know. As an equatorial mount. This allows me to take longer exposures and not get star trails or blurred details.

I registered (aligned) the starts in a free program called SIRIL, as well as stacked them and created a star mask to be used in Photoshop to edit the comet and stars separated, before finally recombining them into one image again. This allows me to bring out more details in the comet because if I the stars received the same edits, they would be greatly over-cooked, deterring from the finer details of the comet. This is a common practice in Astrophotography when the stars aren’t the star of the show.

They do get some treatment though. I usually reduce the number of stars by eliminating the dimmest ones first until it suits my eye. Then I’ll play around with the saturation until I’m satisfied that I can see the subtle color differences in the stars. I also reduce their brightness so they don’t overpower the subject of the image.

If anybody has any questions I’d be happy to try and answer them.

Enjoy!

10/21/2024

This shot of the comet shows the “anti-tail.” If you look closely at the core you’ll see a tiny tail pointing the opposite direction of the main ion tail. This little tail indicates the path the comet took. It’s full of the bigger chunks that break off as the suns radiation erodes the rock and ice.

I can’t get enough of this one! If it’s clear during the week I might try and bring out the big scope to get a close-up of the core area. Cross your fingers!