Dave

Dude, that's awesome!

Looking good!

Not only did I see the colony, I took a tour! The Moon people still exist, but they're only visible in REM sleep. I spoke with ones who have survived and exist mostly in the 5th, 6th & 7th dimensions, and then they showed me ALL their ancient ruins on the Moon! I didn't even need a spacesuit!! 😁🤣😜

The Moon in a waxing gibbous phase.

A full view of tonight's Moon. Same equipment.

The Moon highlighting Mare Humorum.

The Mare Humorum region of the Moon, tonight. The 68 miles (110 km) crater Gassendi is the large feature with the central mountain peak otersecing the mare.

Telescope: Explore Scientific FCD100 ED Triplet Refractor

Camera: Google Pixel 7 thru Explore Scientific 24mm 82 degree eyepiece.

Nice!

My wife and I will be in Iceland in August of this year. Been wanting to visit your country for many years.

The Evening Sky Map is a 2-page monthly publication in the PDF format that features an all-sky map of the night sky, a calendar of celestial events, and a list of celestial objects visible to the naked eye, binoculars and telescopes.

🌟 The March 2026 edition of The Evening Sky Map (PDF) is now available for download at skymaps.com/tesm/. The PDF features easy-to-use sky maps for the northern & southern hemispheres, and for the equatorial regions. Please share, and enjoy exploring the Universe! 🔭
#stargazing #space

I have an SCT. Not the same one, but having it is great for imaging planets.

Excellent!

Well, that was 30+ years ago, so I can't say I remember.

The SCT was on a fork mount which was then on a wedge for equatorial tracking. The bigger problem was that the fork wasn't very rigid, so barely touching the shutter would transfer vibrations into the optical train. And at a 2000mm focal length lens, that would get magnified horribly.

A spiny tree-like cactus on a sandy hill with a sagebrush landscape and snow covered mountains in the background. From Wikipedia: Silver cholla is a large, shrub to tree-like cactus which may exceed 0.5 to 2 m (1.6 to 6.6 ft) in height. Its stems and branches are made up of cylindrical green tubercles (segments) up to 1.5 cm wide and just under 1.0 cm tall. The elliptical white or yellow areoles turn gray and bear conspicuous yellow glochids that are 3 to 4 millimeters long. The 6 to 22 spines are present on almost all areoles. The fleshy tubercles each bear up to 20 long, straight, grayish or yellowish spines which may be nearly 4 cm long. The thorns interlock and cover the shoots. They are erect to spreading, white to brown, sometimes darker, and are 2.5 to 5 centimeters long. Bristle-like thorns are also often present. The sheaths of the thorns are white at their base and golden yellow above. The flowers are usually greenish yellow, sometimes pinkish or brownish in color. The fruit is lumpy, spiny, and tan in color, with white seeds and a foul scent, reminiscent of rancid butter. It measures up to 2 to 2.3 centimeters long. Very few fruits reach maturity, and many immature fruits can often be seen lying on the ground below. This plant reproduces mainly through seeds, but its tubercles may break off and have a chance of producing new plants through asexual reproduction.

Multiple barrels of cacti with long tangled spines. It is next to a granite boulder on a sandy slope with snow covered mountains in the background. From Wikipedia The stems of Homalocephala polycephala are sometimes solitary, but more often in clusters of as many as 30, grow 30 to 60 centimeters tall and 10 to 20 centimeters in diameter. Its stems are marked by 13 to 21 ribs. The areoles bear four central spines, which are reddish with a slight purplish hue and become gray with age; these spines are irregularly arranged, with the lowest one curving downwards and the others generally straight and crisscrossed. The central spines reach lengths of 6–7.5 cm. The spines are yellow to red. Additionally, 6 to 8 radial spines, also irregularly distributed, are similar in appearance to the central spines and measure 3–4.5 cm long. The cactus produces yellow flowers, each with a central pink stripe, measuring approximately 5 cm in both length and diameter. The fruits are densely woolly covered in white hairs that are 1.2 to 2 cm long.

Cacti of Alabama Hills

Silver Cholla
(Cylindropuntia echinocarpa)

Cotton-Top or Many-Headed Barrel Cactus
(Homalocephala polycephala or Echinocactus polycephalus)

I love how their binomial name describes exactly how they are~
Echino ≈ spiny
Poly ≈ many
Cephalus ≈ head

🌿

For sure - it's not the best image by any means. But I also recall getting my very first "barely" there image of the Horsehead not too many years ago, and this blows that one away. So for the simplicity....yep, these little telescopes are great additions to the arsenal.

It really is.

Just a Seestar telescope. And from the light pollution of the far south suburbs of Chicago too.

Eh, I'd say you should be the one to get it, not your death bed. 😜

Yes it is.

Indeed it is.

Well that's no fun.

Yes it is.

Haha! I still have that film camera..I don't USE it though ...

The Curse of the Amateur Astronomer.

Digital changed everything, for sure. And for no drive, those are fantastic Jupiter images! Nicely done!

Thank you

Thanks!

I feel that sentiment.

Yes! Excellent!

I tell myself that alllllll the time.

How's it working out for you?

Yes. The technical name is IC 434, but most people call it the Horsehead Nebula.