On August 11 2026, we made the trip down from Saint Jean Pied de Port to Pampluña, then Logroño in Spain to live the eclipse on the path of the shadow of the Moon. I had selected several spots, and decided on Villamediana de Iregua, with a top terrace and an excellent view on the… Continue reading Eclipse 2026
IC63/IC59 – Cassiopeia’s Ghosts
Two dim ghosts in the Cassiopeia constellation. They form a large nebula heated by the huge γ Cas named Navi, an eruptive variable star 70.000 times brigther than our Sun. I managed to find one night of exposure during November 2022, an otherwise long rainy month. Around a quarter of hour of RGB for the… Continue reading IC63/IC59 – Cassiopeia’s Ghosts
IC5146 – Cocoon Nebula
IC5146 – Cocoon Nebula Small silky ball laid at the end of a dark footpath, between Cassiopea and Cygnus, the small Cocoon Nebula glows with soft red and mauve colors in a sanctuary of stars. This lovely object, catalogued IC5146, Sharpless 2-125 or Caldwell 19, is a hot emission hydrogen cloud where young stars are… Continue reading IC5146 – Cocoon Nebula
IC434 – Horse Head area
IC434 – Horse Head area In the same constellation as the Great Orion Nebula, up north, there is a immense hydrogen cloud field offering a great background to two fantastic objects… The most famous one is the Horse Nebula, named after its shape as seen from our direction and catalogued as Barnard 33. It is… Continue reading IC434 – Horse Head area
M42 – Orion Nebula
M42 – Orion Nebula Given the amount of pictures on social networks, capturing and processing this famous nebula has become quite demanding. This target is visible during the cold season in the Northern hemisphere, from November to end of February in my backyard, counting roofs and vegetation. What makes this object difficult is the luminosity… Continue reading M42 – Orion Nebula
IC1805 – Heart Nebula
IC1805 – Heart Nebula The Heart Nebula is located between Cassiopea and Perseus. It is a large area that required a 2-pane mosaic to cover. There is a star cluster at the center of the nebula, catalogued as Melotte 15, and a huge amount of dusty filaments. This was my first pleasantly successful mosaic with… Continue reading IC1805 – Heart Nebula
M51 – Whirlpool Galaxy
M51 – Whirlpool Galaxy What we call the Whirlpool Galaxy is actually a pair of galaxies interacting with each other. A scenario proposes that the small one, NGC5195, did traverse a few times its companion and is now located slightly behind the larger M51. The iconic two galaxies of the M51 object are special to… Continue reading M51 – Whirlpool Galaxy
Small disaster recovery
As it sometimes happens, the NAS hardware that was providing my website died at the end of August 2021. While its data had been backed up, repairing the WordPress package unfortunately dismissed the gallery associations! It will take a bit of time before I reconnect posts and media, so some pictures may be missing here… Continue reading Small disaster recovery
NGC7635 – The Bubble Nebula
NGC7635, the Bubble Nebula. This strange object is the result of stellar winds produced by the star visible on the lower left, causing a shock wave on the clouds nearby. The propagation is not symmetric due to the differing density of those clouds. This picture took nearly 14 hours of 300-second H-Alpha exposures, combined with… Continue reading NGC7635 – The Bubble Nebula
KStars v3.5.0 is released!
KStars v3.5.0 is the result of a few months of incredible work in terms of performance and stability. The Team could integrate in Ekos the excellent StellarSolver library, providing fast source extraction, HFR computation and plate-solving, and the very helpful Analyze module, giving an overview of the full observation session in a glance. My contribution… Continue reading KStars v3.5.0 is released!