Event Photography

07/16/2026

The Deer Lick group in the constellation Pegasus, dominated by NGC 7331, a spiral galaxy about 40 million l-y away. The other galaxies that appear near it (labelled image i comments) are almost 10 times more distant, 290 - 365 million l-y. These galaxies are visually grouped from our vantage point, but are not gravitationally linked to each other any more than all matter is linked. The odd name of the group came about when an amateur astronomer had a particularly good look at the group from Deer Lick Gap, in South Carolina.

The light from the large NGC 7331 originated when creatures related to modern moths and butterflies first appeared on Earth. Photons from the most distant galaxy set out when the earliest vertebrate that might be capable of walking appeared, setting the stage for vertebrates to move from the sea to the land.

40 x 300-sec exposures (plus 20 darks, 30 flats & bias frames)
3 hr 20 min total exposure
Bortle 4 sky
ew Moon, 0% illuminated
ZWO ASI533mc Pro camera (gain 101, offset 70, -5°C)
Baader UV-IR Cut filter
Apertura CarbonStar 6 (1377 mm focal length) telescope
HEQ5 Pro mount (guided)
stacked and processed with Siril
Denoised nd background extracted with GraXpert
tweaked in Raw Therapee & GIMP

07/14/2026

Lynds' Bright Nebula 393 is a region of glowing hydrogen within a larger hydrogen emission nebula known as SH2-119 (the Clamshell Nebula). I will from now on refer to LBN 393 as the Laughing Dog Nebula as a result of what Pam saw in the image (see my annotated version in the comments). Beverley Lynds catalogued many "bright" and dark dust nebulae in the 1950s -- often quite challenging to photograph. This "bright" nebula was barely visible in individual 5-min exposures -- it only appeared distinctly after multiple images were combined.

SH2-119 (and thus LBN 393) is about 2,200 light-years away from us based on the European Space Agency's Gaia survey, which uses parallax to measure distances within the galaxy. This means that the photons that I captured set out around the time that streets were first paved in Rome.

44 x 300-sec exposures (plus 30 flats & bias frames, 20 darks)
4 hr 40 min total exposure
Bortle 4 sky
Waning crescent Moon, 4% illuminated
ZWO ASI533MC Pro camera (-5°C, gain 101, offset 70)
Optolong L-eNhance filter
Apertura CarbonStar RC6 telescope (1377 mm focal length)
EQ5 Pro mount (guided)
stacked and processed in Siril
Background extraction and denoising in GraXpert
tweaked in Raw Therapee and GIMP

07/10/2026

A portion of the Eagle Nebula (M16), centered on the "Pillars of Creation" (so named by NASA after the Hubble Space Telescope captured what has become one of its most famous photos in 1995). This emission nebula (hydrogen heated to the point of glowing by nearby stars) is in the constellation Serpens; the dark Pillars are cooled hydrogen and dust that obscure the brighter light emitted by the hot stars and glowing hydrogen behind them.

The Eagle Nebula is about 5,700 light-years away. I captured photons that set out when merchants in Uruk, in Mesopotamia, recorded their transactions by placing tokens in hollow balls of clay -- a few centuries later this had transformed into the earliest form of writing. The tomb of Gilgamesh is believed to have been located in Uruk. [Some might notice that the distance to a target differs across various times that I post an image of that target. This is NOT because we are travelling toward or away from the target at great speed, but rather that astronomers have produced better estimates of the distance.]

38 x 300-sec exposures (plus 20 darks & flats, 30 bias frames)
3 hr 10 min total exposure
Bortle 4 sky
Last quarter Moon, 51% illuminated
ZWO ASI533mc Pro camera (gain 101, offset 70, -5°C)
Baader UV/IR filter
Apertura CarbonStar 6 telescope (1380 mm focal length)
HEQ5 pro mount (guided)
stacked and processed in Siril
denoised in GraXpert
tweaked in Raw Therapee & GIMP

07/07/2026

My "Addams Family" (Marshall Civic Players) photos are available in my online gallery for purchase or just for enjoyment (select the "Slideshow" icon and relive the show). Show your love -- support your local theater photographer.

Jeff Wilson

07/05/2026

There might be a few more photos from this show coming. Apologies for the delay.

06/28/2026

The look you'll get from Wednesday if you miss your last chance to see"The Addams Family Musical" by Marshall Civic Players this afternoon (Sunday).

06/26/2026

A look at Abell 2151, the Hercules Galaxy Cluster. This group of more than 200 galaxies in the constellation Hercules is about 500 million light-years away from us. I turned to this target in my quest to photograph Arp objects (from Arp's Atlas of Peculiar Galaxies, 1966). Three Arp objects are visible here (Arp 71, 172, 272), annotated in an image in the comments. In all three cases these are examples of two galaxies interacting with each other. In addition to the Arp objects, my image contains at least 50 other visible galaxies, some labelled in the image in the comments, some smaller ones unlabelled.

The light from these galaxies set out at about the time that Jellyfish first appeared on Earth. Vertebrates did not yet exist.

25 x 300-sec exposures (plus 20 darks, 30 flats & bias frames)
2 hr 5 min total exposure
Bortle 4 sky
Waxing gibbous Moon, 68% illuminated
ZWO ASI533mc Pro camera (gain 101, offset 70, -5°C)
Baader UV-IR Cut filter
Apertura Carbonstar 6 telescope (1380 mm focal length)
HEQ5 Pro mount
stacked and processed with Siril
Background extraction & denoising with GraXpert
tweaked with Raw Therapee & GIMP

06/26/2026

06/26/2026

Without a pit and crew, a musical doesn't work.