Cigar Galaxy (M82), Bode's Galaxy (M81)

Bode's galaxy (M81) is a large bright spiral galaxy located approximately 11.8 million light-years from Earth in the constellation of Ursa Major. The Cigar Galaxy (M82) can be found right next to M81 and resembles a cigar of sorts. This pair of galaxies look amazing next to each other, and the differences between them is striking. NGC3077 completes this trio of galaxies, but is more of a faint blob compared to its neighbors. I took these over a 3 week period in by backyard in Cathedral City California.

Equipment used:
Celestron Nexstar 6se
6.3 focal reducer
AVX Mount
Canon 450d 600s iso800
Orion skyglow filter

6 hours total exposure time

Bode's Galaxy M81

Cigar Galaxy M82

Here are the 2 images stitched together, creating a wider field of view. I also was able to add some H-Alpha data to M81 which gives it a bit more color

This next image was taken with a Orion ST80 which has awider field of view and shows all 3 galaxies 

Orion ST80
AVX Mount
Canon 450d 300s iso800
Orion skyglow filter

Moon Craters taken 3-8-17

I snapped an image of Clavius (crater) and Longomontanus (crater) the other night. The seeing was amazing, and the images show all kinds of detail.

Celestron Nexstar 6se
Celestron AVX Mount
ASI120MC-S Camera
Taken in Cathedral City, CA

 Clavius (crater)

Longomontanus (crater)

Jupiter rotation video 3-8-17

The other night I was out in the backyard imaging Jupiter and decided to make a rotation video of the planet. I ended up with 2 separate videos because the seeing changed and I had to reduce my magnification a bit. The end results turned out pretty good though!

These were made up of individual images taken every so often between 11pm and about 3am, so around a 4 hour period of rotation.

Celestron Nexstar 6se
Celestron AVX Mount
ASI120MC-S Camera
Taken in Cathedral City, CA

Here is a couple still images from the videos: