The Region of the Clavius Crater on the Moon

 

I photographed this Clavius Region on the Moon's southern hemisphere this evening with a Meade LX200GPS 8" SCT and a monochrome camera. For a enlarged view, click on the photo.

The largest crater in this image is Clavius. It is one of the largest crater formations on the Moon and the second largest crater on the visible near side. It is located in the rugged southern highlands of the Moon, to the south of the prominent ray crater Tycho. It is easily identified even with standard binoculars.

It is named for the Jesuit priest Christopher Clavius who was adhered strictly to the geocentric model of the Solar System all the heavens rotate about the Earth. Though he opposed the heliocentric model (where the planets and Earth revolve aroun the Sun) of Copernicus, he recognized problems with the geocentric model. He was treated with great respect by Galileo, who visited him in 1611 and discussed the new observations being made with the telescope; Clavius had by that time accepted the new discoveries as genuine though he retained doubts about the reality of the mountains on the Moon.

Comet Lemmon - October 25, 2025

 

You all have likely heard of the comet gracing our evening sky: Comet Lemmon (aka Comet C/2025 A6 (Lemmon) It is in the constellation of Serpens, in the northwest after sunset here.

This is a quickie capture of 18 minutes with my telescope and camera. You will notice that the head of the comet is glowing greenish which is the result of sunlight interacting with diatomic carbon (\(C_{2}\)) and other carbon compounds in its coma as the molecules become energized (you just had to know!)

You will also notice that the "tail" has two parts to it: the white/yellowish part is made up of the dust and rock that has been blown off the comet's head by the heating of the sun. The second part of the comet tail is the long, straight, and bluish tail that always points directly away from the sun. It is called the ion tail as the solar "wind" strips the ions and pushes them away from the sun. You may also see up in the right hand corner of the image that this ion tail is distorted. That is due to differences in the solar wind. So much for tonight's lecture on comets!

I hope you enjoy the image!

It is the result of 5 - 30 second images stacked.

C/2025 R2 (SWAN) - October 14, 2025

 

C/2025 R2 (SWAN) was identified by Vladimir Bezugly in SWAN images around 2025-09-11 (visible in SWAN since at least Sep 4, with STEREO-A/HI-1 detections into late August. C/2025 R2 (SWAN) is past perihelion, which occurred in mid September 2025. On September 12 the comet will pass within 0.3 AU of the earth. It reached maximum brightness in late September.

Nothing great but just another bagging of a comet since I moved here to SV. the tail was very faint as it moved through the early night sky October 14th.

Due to the monsoon and the post-monsoon monsoon I wasn't able to capture it when it was it's brightest. Oh well...

M51 with new astro camera!

 

Messier 51 aka the Whirlpool Galaxy

(Click for a little larger image)

Taken April 24, 2025 from my observatory

with the Daystar 480mm f/6 telescope

ZWO ASI585MC cooled camera

2 hours of 2 minute subs

Stacked with Siril and post processed with GIMP

I am really enjoying this new (to me) camera!

 

Here is another portion of the nebula known as IC1318 (see previous post). Since learning how to image remotely I can know image for longer periods of time from the comfort of my living room! Woohoo ! No more bugs to bother me and I can doze on and off at my leisure!

This is a stack of 84 two-minute images

Total time: 2 hours 48 minutes worth of exposure time

Stacked in Siril

Daystar 480mm f/6 refractor

ZWO ASI585MC cooled camera

SVBony Quad band filter

Final post-processing in GIMP

M13 globular star cluster

 

This is Messier 13 (M13) in the constellation Hercules. It is about 22,000 light years from us and is about 84 light-years in diameter. M13 is composed of several hundred thousand stars and it is possible to see it with binoculars in the night sky.

Notice the color of the stars...blue stars are much hotter than yellow or orange colored stars, just like as gas stove's blue flame is much hotter than a candle's yellow/orange flame.

Notice that in the upper right hand corner is NGC 6207, a dim 12th-magnitude edge-on galaxy which is about 30 million light-years from Earth.

I took this image this past week with a 480mm f/6 refractor telescope.

Click on the image for an enlarged view!

The Gamma Sygni region near the central star of the "Northern Cross" aka "The Swan"

 

I was out late last night and captured a region of the summer night sky that is known as the "Northern Cross" or "The Swan".

This is a small portion of the very dim diffuse emission nebula known as  IC 1318 or the Gamma Cygni Nebula) The area imaged here is nearest to Sadr, Gamma Cygni and it the star at the far left. This star is at the center of Cygnus's cross, aka "The Northern Cross."

Data-

Scope: Daystar refractor 480mm focal lenght at f/6

Filter: SVBONY SV260 Telescope Filter, 2'' quad multi-bandpass

Camera: ZWO 585mc cooled

Exposure: 68subs @ 30sec each, Bin 1, gain 252

Stacked with Siril 1.2.4

Post processed in Gimp 2.10