Westwood Driveway Observatory

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Westwood Driveway Observatory

Astrophotography by Loran Hughes

04/27/2026

The globular cluster Messier 3! 34,000 light years from the center of my driveway in Canes Venatici, this object contains more than 500,000 stars. Imaged with an 11-inch SCT and mono camera with LRGB filters.

03/03/2026

Time lapse view of the lunar eclipse from my Allsky camera last night. Towards the end, you'll see the bright moon "wink out" as it crosses into the earth's shadow.

11/18/2025

It's been a hot minute since I posted anything here! Andromeda, seemingly framed in the nebulosity of the Milky Way. The was shot over three nights in September. Image details are on my Astrobin page at https://app.astrobin.com/i/w0aubd

06/21/2025

I tweaked my solar filter setup last week to eek out more contrast and detail of the sun's chromosphere. Of course, this created some cloudy days, so it won't get a full baptism until later this week. Here's one of the first images from the new setup.

06/08/2025

The Draco Triplet is an optical illusion - these three galaxies aren't all that close to each other and most likely are not gravitationally bound. The spiral galaxy at the top (NGC 5985) is 140 million light years away and about a third larger than our Milky Way galaxy.

The elliptical galaxy in the center (NGC 5982) is closer, at 130 million light years. The nearest of the group is the edge-on spiral galaxy NGC 5981, at 112 million light yeras.

Imaged from the driveway over three nights last week! Image details on my Astrobin page at https://app.astrobin.com/i/jccmmy

05/07/2025

Keenan's system (Arp104) is made up of two interacting galaxies some 17.3 million light years away in Ursa Major. A bridge of galactic material spans about 22,000 light years between the two galaxies. I dodged clouds for 3 nights to get 15.5 hours on this object.

05/03/2025

The Sunflower galaxy (Messier 63), blooming in the spring skies over Southern Oregon. This image is comprised of data taken over two years, representing 19 hours of photons hitting my camera's sensor. Image details on my Astrobin page at https://app.astrobin.com/i/ql3yos

04/24/2025

The Eyes Galaxies in the Constellation Virgo, some 52 million light years from Earth. NGC 4438 is seriously misshapen due to collisions & gravitational interactions with two other galaxies millions of years ago. I spent the last three nights imaging this with my 11" scope. Image details on my Astrobin page at https://app.astrobin.com/i/enzh4a

04/15/2025

Messier 97, the Owl nebula. This planetary nebula is about 2030 light years away in Ursa Major and is approximately 8000 years old. The central star (a white dwarf) is surrounded by shells of ionized hydrogen and oxygen. This is the result of nearly 25 hours of imaging from the driveway in March and April!

03/14/2025

Digging into the archive, here's Messier 1, the Crab nebula. I imaged this from the driveway in Jan & Dec of 2022 with my 8-inch EdgeHD.

Address

Central Point, OR
97502

Website

http://westwoodastro.net/

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