12/18/2025 Astrophotography

Many of my astronomer friends are getting into smart scopes like the Seestar and Vespera, but I haven’t committed yet. Last night I wanted to get some images so I broke out the old Celestron AVX mount and 10” Orion Astrograph. It was a bit of a chore getting it set up, but once it was going it really started to crank. I was dodging clouds in the early part of the night then it cleared up later. I was able to capture 13 celestial objects - mostly tiny planetary nebulae that are part of my Astronomy League program, but also some doozers like Horsehead and Triangulum. It was a challenge to manually star hop to the objects that weren’t in the catalog, like the Jonckheeres and Minkowskis. The goal ultimately is to memorize them by heart, like their location, how to star hop to them, the pattern of stars in the view field, and which ones are my very faavorites that I will return to again and again for little bursts of beauty, wonder and joy.