Dana Matson

it's the "how to draw an owl" meme — step 1, "draw some circles" (an oval and a circle for the head). step 2, "draw the rest of the fucking owl" (a beautifully rnedered and shaded owl with lots of detail only i crossed out "circles" and wrote llm and crossed out "owl" and wrote "AGI"

Going back through the quotes, I think this is my favorite.

"Don't cross the streams" is really good, though.

ONE WEEK until the 2025 USAU Club Nationals Championships! Tune into all the action on Ultiworld! Who are you most excited to watch?? buff.ly/tMr09Pd

True. I'm looking forward to getting a clear night tonight, though.

If @vmix.com works on it, I'm in

particle of light just reaching earth from a distant star in a terrible mood as it had come all this way to see dinosaurs and now it has to go all the way to the other dinosaur planet

Finally got enough data to be happy with this result. Over 55 hours of narrowband data, and some broadband data for the stars. I processed this using the Foraxx palette to get some orange color.

#Astrophotography #Supernova #Space

A grayscale image of the "garlic nebula" representing the hydrogen data.

A color image of a combination of hydrogen (red) and oxygen (blue/green) for the "garlic nebula"

A sneak peak on what I'm currently working on. These are from 10 minute subs. I still need a lot more data since it's such a dim target but I'm hype to see what I'll be able to get out of it. The moon's finally out of the way so it should hopefully only be a few more days.

#astrophotography

It is a very dim target. I spent 40 hours on it last year, but it was well worth it. I wish you clear skies ahead!

Comet C/2025 A6 Lemmon taken from my backyard

Two nights of 3:45am alarms, blazing full moon lighting the sky like daytime and washing out the light of everything else, comet included. Then two days of post-processing battles, as comet processing is maddeningly tricky.

But I finally pulled it off: here is C/2025 A6 Lemmon. 🔭

#Astrophotography

What did you for L to RGB ratio?

Here is my fun new article about him suing the New York Times for a lot of money and the judge saying pls get the fuck outta my face with this shit and come back when you can act like you got some sense

ballsandstrikes.org/law-politics...

I need another option. I work a lot of Saturdays and Sundays, but sometimes they are the weekend

Cancel this fascists

M17 Omega is like the TEMU version of M42 Orion. It kind of has the same shape and colours but looks like it's been hitting the crystal pipe and has fallen on hard times.

Apertura 75Q (Native)
QHY Minicam8 + OAG
SkyWatcher 100i
35 x 2m R
11 x 2m G (oops)
35 x 2m B
Total: 2.7hrs

This is an important time to remember that responsibility is not a zero-sum game — recognizing one person’s fault does not necessarily diminish another person’s.

The Trump administration is fascist. And ABC cynically caved and abandoned American values for money. Both are worthy of your contempt.

A blue and red nebula, the center of which resembles Pac-Man with his mouth open. Meeting the center there is a lot of red gas that almost looks like flames emanating from the center of the nebula, which is bright, vivid blue.

Last year I gathered a lot of data on the Pacman Nebula, but never processed it in a way I was happy with. One of the big challenges with this nebula is that the surrounding hydrogen is much fainter than the main nebula.

#Astrophotography #Space #nebula #pacman

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You can get prints on all sorts of merch here: store.rupertstudios.com/featured/pac...

NGC281 - Pacman Nebula HOO - AstroBin The Pacman Nebula is a very popular target, because it is large enough for a pretty small telescope and relatively bright. I like to challenge myself to see what else there is beyond the bright object...

More details, and likely a better quality image are available on Astrobin: app.astrobin.com/u/dmatson1?i...

Processing this requires masking the brightest areas, carefully, then only brightening the faint hydrogen regions. This can only be done with many hours of data. I rarely see the faint hydrogen prominently featured in images of the Pacman Nebula.

A blue and red nebula, the center of which resembles Pac-Man with his mouth open. Meeting the center there is a lot of red gas that almost looks like flames emanating from the center of the nebula, which is bright, vivid blue.

Last year I gathered a lot of data on the Pacman Nebula, but never processed it in a way I was happy with. One of the big challenges with this nebula is that the surrounding hydrogen is much fainter than the main nebula.

#Astrophotography #Space #nebula #pacman

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My new hobby is counting each pixel in my astrophotography

Red and orange clouds of gas mostly fill the frame. In the top right is an orange structure that resembles the propeller of an airplane. In the bottom left are 3 bright blue spots that are reflection nebulae. The whole image has a field of colorful stars.

My latest project is a combination of broadband and maintenance data in Cygnus. In the bottom are 2 reflection nebulae, and the top right is the propeller nebula.

#Astrophotography #Space #nebula

The main focus is a spiky arch of red and blue that is the remaining gas from a supernova.

It's been a while since I've posted one of my photos. This is still a work in progress, but it's coming along. This is a faint supernova remnant in Cygnus. I'm about 25 hours in, and I probably want to double it to bring out more details.

#astrophotography #supernova

The iconic Pillars of Creation - dust clouds and star forming regions in M16, The Eagle Nebula

Yeah… I got a bit emotional watching this emerge on screen as my #SeestarS50 began to capture photons.

I’ve seen the star cluster in M16, and once a few years back on an exceptional summers night of seeing, I got a hint of nebulosity.

But this was always THAT […]

[Original post on mstdn.social]

I felt the same way when I stacked and stretched my first tracked astro photo. It's an incredible feeling. Congrats!

If it responds and says “Of course I will stop updating at random times, even when you told me not to” then I'm on board

That makes sense. I usually leave my rig running all night, unless there's rain expected

Usually during the day, so I'm not taking away from possible imaging time

Happy to see my Senators @warren.senate.gov and @markey.senate.gov among those who voted for this resolution

Photo of space dust that looks like two dragons

On my way back to home from spending a week in Atacama Desert. There are no words to describe this sky. I have tons of data to spam, and here is just a quick processing I did in the floor of Calama’s airport. Ara’s dragons fighting over his egg… starless edition. #AstroCostaRica #Astrophotography 🔭