Darker Skies in Southern Arizona

We went down to southern Arizona where my Mom grew up. She has some friends that had a great place with pretty dark skies and nothing blocking the view in any direction. here are a couple of the pictures from our visit

Andromeda Galaxy aka m31. I tried out a lens that doubles the telescopes field of view so i could see most of Andromeda Galaxy. it causes some distortion on the outer edges of frame.


Orion Nebula (m42) again. Much brighter in dark skies which helps create a lot more contrast. Cant wait to get back out in dark skies again!

Jupiter!

Jupiter and 3 of its moons as seen from Phoenix.

New Telescope!

I got a nice new telescope a few months back but have not had a chance to use it until last night. We are at my Mom's in Phoenix where it is less foggy, wet and it actually seems a little darker but probably not. Anyway here are the goods. Be sure to click on the images fot the larger versions.

M42. Very first picture!


M42 after a little more fiddling.


Same image unedited.


Moon.


Eskimo Nebula.


Eskimo Nebula a bit closer and tweaked.

Took some pictures of Saturn too but I need to stack them and dont have the software on my travel computer.

Pistol the Fetching Kitty

Pistol loves to play fetch. She will play for 5 or 10 or 20 minutes at a time and beg and cry when we wont play with her. As a matter of fact she is begging right now....

...and I'm back. We must spend hours a week playing fetch with her. She wants to play first thing after eating in the morning and is always begging us to play all night. I really love having such a cute fetching kitty!