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Holy cow, Dave! Your photos are fantastic and a very cool website as well. I'll be showing it to my 12 year old grandson with the NASA t-shirt, it's right up his alley.

Thanks for sharing.

Dave moved in a few ridge tops over from me a not many years ago to build his retirement observatory. I met him through our local Ham radio club. I'm on a narrow ridge top and spent a bunch of money on an antenna system. When we work the same frequencies his more moderate antenna system pulls in signals I don't even hear and he gets much louder signal reports from the distant stations we both work together.

It really is about location location location. IIRC this part of the NC Mountains is rated one of the best dark sky areas on the East coast. It is not unusual to be able to see the Milky Way from horizon to horizon on moonless nights.

Great stuff, thanks for sharing!

Very interesting!

Had a friend from England who was into that. He bought a tract in an astro-subdivision in NM. There were no other houses or towns close, so the light pollution was very low, and the altitude was optimal.

He put in an observatory he could run remotely from wherever he was. Hate to think of what he spent on that setup...

He enjoyed the hell out of it though, and got photos like what you posted.

This is fascinating. I will be sharing with the grandkids, they are information sponges and these type sources are far better than some of their hoodlum friends inputs. Thanks Kamo and Dave!

Solid.

Pretty Cool, Leighton! There's some folks that get into that stuff here in the West Texas desert.......sky for miles and miles. This city is a Dark Skies Compliant city as well......



Frog---OUT!

I didn’t see that until you mentioned it. Now I can’t unsee it. Creepy +p

Love this pics.

Bought my daughter a cheap telescope when she was little. Was really cool just even looking at the moon through it.

Dude, I was looking at the pics on the desktop screen and about crapped my pants....lol

I get the planetary drive and all that to counter the earth’s rotation when capturing images but what I find surprising is how small his lens is yet he still gathers enough light to form those impressive images.

By way of contrast, check out the lenses used by this crew of birders at Port Aransas TX during peak Spring migration (late April).



Note, these people aren’t looking at some bird hundreds of yards away, they are focused on a freshwater drip from a garden hose at the bases of that row of bushes not 20’ way

One of the greatest perks about living out here in the “sticks” is there’s very little light pollution.
My Daughter in Law grew up in a town in Michigan. The first time she visited she was absolutely amazed at the number of stars and things visible here.
Ben’s got some kind of big monstrous telescope that you program in the local coordinates and it finds whatever you want to study. Pretty neat, although I’m not a big fan of technology, I was sorta fascinated.
On top of Sidling Hill there’s an open field that’s sometimes used as a heliport.
Be a great place to set that thing up some night when the humidity is pretty low.
7mm

Very cool stuff that is, very impressive!

Ask your buddy if he could peer inside my Ex’s skull and find out what’s wrong. It’s a matter of public safety.

Kami gari: It make me feel small when I see pictures of vast and distant galaxies!
I do some "star gazing" myself - with an astronomical type telescope.
I enjoy the sights in our solar system a lot. One night I saw 6 of Jupiters many moons and have seen the rings of Saturn many times.
And simply gazing at the countless craters on the moon never tires me.
Hold into the stars
VarmintGuy

Very nice! Can't imagine the time a money you have invested.

KG, I'll bet you have never met a stranger.

Good post!

We had a visitor a few years ago who had an app on his phone that charted what the different constellations were when pointed in their general direction. That was impressive.

Thanks for posting...great photos!

I would really like to see a better photo of his telescope. I have several friends that are way into this hobby. Guess I need to pick their brains a bit.

It always amazes me that in Colorado at 10,000’ you can see so many more stars than here at sea level, even in a fairly remote area.

Very cool, thanks for sharing.