All set up and ready to try to catch the comet again. Neowise has dimmed significantly so this time I going after it with the 120mm APO rather than with a camera and lens. I bought this rig specifically for wide-field sky surveys and comets have long been my target of choice. Normally I would use an SCT to acquire comet images but as Neowise is still such a dominating target, the refractor is a better choice. Skies are clear and we're ready to go...

Here is another shot I got of Comet Neowise, this one from Silverdale, Washington. I got hundreds of shots this night but haven't had time to process or stack them. Hopefully I will be able too soon! Meanwhile, here's a teaser ...

This is the star Sadr with a bunch of HA nebulosity around it. These are 1 min exposures with an L-enhance Optolong filter. The filter has 3 bandwidth's HA, HB, and OIII. Sadr is in the constellation Cygnus, in the eastern sky this time of year. Taken from my backyard in Gig Harbor WA, Enjoy!

My second try with the Optolong L-enhance tri band filter. This is only about 20 -2 min subs ISO 4000 with darks takin in camera, so much easier than trying darks for me. From my back yard in Gig Harbor WA, Enjoy!

Usually, I go after very dim comets, but we are currently presented with a very rare treat - a bright comet in the northeast sky! I've been trying to get Neowise all week but the Seattle skies have been typically cloudy. This morning, however, the skies were clear as a bell. I woke up before 1 a.m and was on the Manchester beach (across from Seattle) by 2 a.m.

This image shows the faint Comet Atlas as it moves across the star field ... this is an animated .gif - hopefully your browser is capable of displaying it properly.

Another shot of M-106 from last night. This is 60 shots with 56 stacked in DSS. ISO 1600. I had 60 shots but a few had satilites in them so they get removed. All of my prosesing is done with free software, DeepSkyStacker and Gimp. Taken from my back yard in Gig Harbor WA, Enjoy. 

This is a photo of Comet Atlas (Y4) from Port Orchard, Washington on April 16, 2020. The comet, currently magnitude 9.3, is in the constellation  Camelopardalis. As it approaches the sun, the comet is beginning to disintegrate. A careful look at this photo shows several brighter spots near the comet's head which suggest that fragmentation.

Meade LX200, 8x2min subs, 3600ISO, Canon 60D, Optec Lepus 6.3 reducer, Maxim DSLR.

Got a quickie shot of Venus tonight before starting to polar align for a night out under the stars... Venus is magestic and VERY bright high in the West!

The 8" LX200 hasn't been used in so long that I've basically forgotten how to use it ... I am now favoring equatorial-mounted scopes rather than fork mounted. That said, the LX200 does sit on a Milburn wedge and, in my opinion, there is not a finer wedge on the market. But even with that, I couldn't get a good polar alignment last night no matter what I tried. Several times, I did the two-star alignment, only to get reasonably close on go-to's and tracking accuracy only down to about 15 seconds. We all know that one can't really work with this.