Westwood Driveway Observatory

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Central Point, OR
Westwood Driveway Observatory

Astrophotography by Loran Hughes

10/12/2026

For those of you who use N.I.N.A. and PHD2 with your rig, I've just released Guide Guardian, a free, open source watchdog that monitors the quality of your PHD2 guiding while a NINA sequence runs. When guiding genuinely fails, it stops the exposure, re-centers the target, restarts guiding and resumes the sequence automagically. Note: This software was developed with AI assistance. Github link in the comments!

09/29/2026

I followed the evolution of supernova SN 2026aaiv (in NGC 7331) this month (as the clouds allowed). Now that it's beginning to fade, I'm moving on to other things!

09/25/2026

Stephan's Quintet. Four distant galaxies are in the process of merging. The blue galaxy is much closer and simply photobombing. https://app.astrobin.com/i/1t6h36

09/20/2026

I'm still keeping an eye on supernova SN 2026aaiv in the galaxy NGC 7331. Differential photometry measures it at magnitude 11.7 tonight and should be near its peak brightness before starting to fade.

09/17/2026

Last week, I photographed the progression of a type 1a supernova 45 million light years from the driveway. Over five nights, its brightness doubled!

NGC 7331 with SN 2026aaiv Light Curve imaged with Celestron C11, ZWO ASI2600MM Pro, 22h 45m of total integration, by Loran Hughes on AstroBin.

08/28/2026

It's been a minute since I've posted anything here! I'm still recovering from some health issues and haven't gotten a telescope out in a while. I was able to get out last night and get a few shots of the partial lunar eclipse with my Nikon D5300.

04/27/2026

The globular cluster Messier 3! 34,000 light years from the center of my driveway in Canes Venatici, this object contains more than 500,000 stars. Imaged with an 11-inch SCT and mono camera with LRGB filters.

03/03/2026

Time lapse view of the lunar eclipse from my Allsky camera last night. Towards the end, you'll see the bright moon "wink out" as it crosses into the earth's shadow.

11/18/2025

It's been a hot minute since I posted anything here! Andromeda, seemingly framed in the nebulosity of the Milky Way. The was shot over three nights in September. Image details are on my Astrobin page at https://app.astrobin.com/i/w0aubd

06/21/2025

I tweaked my solar filter setup last week to eek out more contrast and detail of the sun's chromosphere. Of course, this created some cloudy days, so it won't get a full baptism until later this week. Here's one of the first images from the new setup.

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Central Point, OR
97502

Website

http://westwoodastro.net/

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