The Vast Reaches

The Vast Reaches Photographing the curiosities of the universe around you. All images/videos are original content.

NGC 3184 - Little Pinwheel⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀Disillusioned with your news feed? In these times, you may find some inner peace by...
03/23/2026

NGC 3184 - Little Pinwheel
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Disillusioned with your news feed? In these times, you may find some inner peace by looking outward, toward the expanse of our cosmos. I shot this picture of perhaps a trillion alien worlds to brighten your day.
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NGC 3184 is a spiral galaxy about 40 million light years distant. Its nickname comes from its resemblance to the more well known Pinwheel Galaxy. At about half the physical size of this larger namesake, the “Little Pinwheel” is appropriately titled.
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Nevertheless, our face-on view allows us a beautiful look into a classic “grand design” spiral structure. The main arms are studded with vibrant Blue Supergiant stars and magenta-hued hydrogen clouds, both hallmarks of vigorous star formation.
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Studies have shown NGC3184 to be extraordinarily rich in heavy elements … the building blocks of complex life … and advanced civilization. If that’s not enough, swipe to zoom out and just look at all the other galaxies sprinkled in the background. It doesn’t end.
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May you find your humility among the stars.
I hope you enjoy!
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✨ —> 🔭
Celestron EdgeHD 8”
ZWO ASI1600MM
Orion AtlasPro
LRGB
38.3 hours total exposure
From the backyard
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Jupiter —> swipe through⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀I was able to get the planetary scope out again. Conditions were forecasted as excell...
10/03/2025

Jupiter —> swipe through
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I was able to get the planetary scope out again. Conditions were forecasted as excellent but really were around average for my location.
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I shot Jupiter until dawn with 1 hour and 41 minutes of elapsed time for the session. Besides reaping the best shots for my final still image, I made several looping animations of my monochrome captures and presented them in a few ways here.
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For those that don’t do this as a hobby, I hope this gives some insight into just how much information we have to process and sift through when it’s all said and done. This session was 300,000 images in total with only a small fraction (20k or so) contributing to the final shot.
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Enjoy!
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Details:
30-SEP-2025
TPO 12” f/4 Imaging Newtonian
Televue 5x Powermate
ASI183MM Pro
Sky-watcher EQ6-R Pro
NIR-RGB
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Otter Cliff⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀Looking south over the Atlantic from Acadia National Park, the outer cloud bands of Hurricane Erin c...
09/09/2025

Otter Cliff
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Looking south over the Atlantic from Acadia National Park, the outer cloud bands of Hurricane Erin can be seen on the horizon.
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And that sky? Never in my life have I seen airglow plainly visible to the naked eye, except this night!
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Airglow is similar in appearance to aurora, but it is a different phenomenon entirely. Solar energy absorbed by the upper atmosphere during the day is slowly released throughout the night, creating a faint emission of light that can only be seen under very dark skies. It varies in color and intensity dramatically for various reasons. Airglow commonly takes on the rippled appearance of waves passing overhead.
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This photo is a combination of 6 sub-exposures taken on site, using available light. It was processed to accentuate the dramatic appearance and saturated to show the color variation captured by the camera.
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Hope you enjoy!
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📷 —> ✨
Canon 6D
Samyang 14mm f/2.4 XP
Foreground / tracked sky blend
6x1min each
August 21, 2025
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Smoke Moon⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀… just after midnight this morning.⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀The sky was much too murky to get the telescope out last ...
08/03/2025

Smoke Moon
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… just after midnight this morning.
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The sky was much too murky to get the telescope out last night. But, it was clear. I just couldn’t get over the color of the Moon up there. The orange is due to all the wildfire smoke passing overhead, between us and the Moon.
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I was careful not to make any color adjustments to this image. I love the natural beauty of these tones. I can only hope those fires are due to natural causes and not human activity!
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This photo is technically a blend of two exposure settings, stacked for clarity and focus because I’m a photography nerd and love to over-complicate my life. This was done with the intention of precisely replicating what I could see visually.
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Enjoy!
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🌓 —> 🔭
Canon 6D
Sigma 150-600 Contemporary
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Minkowski 2-9 - The Twin Jet⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀I photographed this celestial object without really knowing what to expect.   There...
07/31/2025

Minkowski 2-9 - The Twin Jet
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I photographed this celestial object without really knowing what to expect.   There aren’t many example images out there, probably because it’s so challenging.  The nebula is exceedingly tiny and faint in the night sky.   I was inspired by a beautiful Hubble telescope photo taken in the 1990s.
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M2-9 belongs to a small category of objects that visibly changes appearance in a matter of months.   Not many things outside the solar system do.  Photos taken on subsequent years actually show the illumination within the nebula changing and hinting at the 3D structure!   Year to year, the  bright areas sweep around much like the familiar beam of a lighthouse.
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So what exactly is this thing?   
There are two stars locked in a tight orbit at the very center.   One of them is a collapsing Red Giant and the other is an already-end-of-life White Dwarf.   The gravitational interactions between them are siphoning the atmosphere from the Red Giant and blasting out two jets of material in opposite directions into interstellar space.   This is known as a bipolar outflow planetary nebula.   As the aim of each jet slowly changes, different areas of the nebula glow brighter.  With an orbital period somewhere around 80-120 years we can see these changes happen as we observe it over time.
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I hope you enjoy the final resulting image from this mega-zoomed-in and mega-challenging project.  The long axis of the nebula spans about 5% of the full Moon in the sky.   So, processing began with 4x data drizzling IYKYK.   Extracting and enhancing the detailed structure was a difficult process, considering I was photographing through relatively modest amateur gear.   But, such is life when you take inspiration from a space telescope!
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✨ —> 🔭
Celestron EdgeHD 8”
ZWO ASI1600MM
Orion AtlasPro
Ha-OIII-RGB natural color mapping
22.73 hours
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I am honored to present to you, Saturn!⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀This is my first time photographing the southern face of the rings. F...
07/25/2025

I am honored to present to you, Saturn!
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This is my first time photographing the southern face of the rings. For the next 15 or so years we will be seeing this side … as the southern hemisphere of Saturn is now tilted toward us.
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It’s worth noting that almost a year has passed since I’ve set up this telescope, my 12” newtonian reflector. It’s a beast to physically manage, so sometimes I secretly dread the process.
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But, everything went surprisingly smooth. I’m thankful for some moments of atmospheric stability AND that I was poised to take advantage! The planets aligned, I suppose.
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Enjoy!
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🪐 —> 🔭
Details:
23-JUL-2025
TPO 12” f/4 Imaging Newtonian
Televue 5x Powermate
ASI183MM Pro
Sky-watcher EQ6-R Pro (I’m sorry)
RRGB
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By the dawn’s early light…4am fireworks spectacular cracked me up. Worth the lack of sleep, I suppose 😏.
07/14/2025

By the dawn’s early light…

4am fireworks spectacular cracked me up. Worth the lack of sleep, I suppose 😏.

NGC772 - The Fiddlehead⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀NGC772 is a large interacting galaxy some 100 million light years away. The main group...
03/20/2025

NGC772 - The Fiddlehead
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NGC772 is a large interacting galaxy some 100 million light years away. The main grouping consists of at least a few satellite galaxies. What once was probably a very regular flocculent structure has elongated into a one-armed bandit … siphoning stars from the poor little neighbors.
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I’m a sucker for these distant interacting galaxy clusters and, having never shot this one, I was excited to see just how much was visible here. The faint tidal tails of stars can be seen tying all these together, even through my ever-increasing light pollution. Though this is a very small object in the telescope (swipe to see the full view), I was able to pull out quite a bit of detail within the system.
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I always wonder what a night sky would look like from one of these far flung galaxies.
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I hope you enjoy!
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✨ —> 🔭
Celestron EdgeHD 8”
ZWO ASI1600MM
Orion AtlasPro
LRGB
33 hours total exposure
From the backyard
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Milford, MI

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