A Name Among the Minor Planets

Astronomy has a way of giving us moments that stop us in our tracks — a perfect opposition, a night under Bortle‑2 skies, a comet that arrives unannounced. This summer brought one of those moments for me, though of a very different kind: at the behest of my friend Rik Hill, the International Astronomical Union officially named minor planet (45639) Tomney in my honor.

It’s difficult to write about something like this without feeling self‑conscious. The night sky has always been the real reward – from that 60mm Monolux that first showed me the Moon’s craters, to the RV‑6 that carried me through my early planetary adventures, to the more recent years of imaging the planets with modern tools. My journey has never been about recognition; it has been about curiosity, community, and the quiet satisfaction of contributing something useful to a hobby that has given me so much.

Still, when I learned of the naming, I felt a deep and genuine gratitude. The citation in a way validates my work modernizing ALPO’s digital presence and preserving tens of thousands of observations – efforts that began in earnest over six years ago during the pandemic years, when the silver lining of remote work gave me the ability to take the reins of the ALPO gallery to transform it into a repository rather than a scrapbook of interesting photos. And given my nature that then grew into a much needed full redesign of the ALPO website which today has advanced search functionality of more than 45,000 observations. Like pulling a thread this has subsequently led to championing an ALPO SPLICE training initiative to help our members increase the quality of their images and thereby the value of the repository. All represent labors of love, shaped by decades of learning, tinkering, and a passion born in a young grade-school boy all the way back in the 60's under those early Towson’s skies.

The naming of a minor planet is not a finish line. It’s a reminder – that amateur astronomy thrives when people choose to show up, to share, to teach, to preserve, and to build. I’ve been fortunate to do those things alongside generous friends, dedicated observers, and welcoming organizations like HAL and ALPO. If my name now circles the Sun, it does so as a symbol of that shared effort.

As for me, I’ll hopefully keep doing what I’ve always done: chasing the planets from the driveway, coaxing deep sky images from the Vixen, helping new observers find their footing, and working to ensure that what I've helped build today will still be useful and maintainable for tomorrow’s amateurs and researchers.

Carpe Noctem!

Binocular Blessings

Every summer I’m reminded that amateur astronomy doesn’t have to begin with a telescope. In fact, some of my fondest observing memories come from evenings years ago from family vacations in Maine. The boys were young and after they were tucked in for the night, I’d slip out to the porch overlooking the lake and settle into a chair. The ambience was peaceful and calm, punctuated by the occasional splash from a small mouth bass or haunting loon call. The Milky Way hung above the lake in the east with a view that spoke of God’s majesty. With nothing more than a pair of 7×50 binoculars that I had packed, I’d sweep those summer celestial vistas – clusters , nebulae, even a few galaxies – and feel the quiet satisfaction of discovering the sky one small field at a time.

Why Binoculars Work So Well for Beginners

Although I was hardly a beginning amateur astronomer in those days, until that time I really did not have the appreciation of their worth. Binoculars are instant astronomy. No alignment. No cooldown. No setup. You step outside and you’re observing.

They also match how we naturally use our eyes – both open, scanning, comparing, noticing patterns. The wide field of view makes the sky feel familiar rather than intimidating. You’re not hunting for tiny objects in a narrow eyepiece; you’re exploring.

And they’re affordable. A perfectly serviceable 7×50 like the Celestron Cometron runs around $50, while more serious observers can step up to something like the SkyMaster Pro ED with BaK‑4 prisms and ED glass. Either way, you’re spending far less than even an entry‑level telescope.

But the real magic is what you can see.

A Backyard Night Under Bortle 8 Skies

As part of my research on how well binoculars can work for an observer wrestling with light pollution, I spent a late June evening in my Towson backyard – a Bortle 8 environment with porch lights, trees, and a limiting naked‑eye magnitude around 4.25. Hardly pristine. But – could my trusty 7x50 binoculars still show me some of the celestial showpieces?

From my observing notes:

“Started off with some double stars… Alberio is quite hard to discern… but a better one is that double near the blinking planetary of Cygnus… the brighter one definitely appears to have an orangish tint… the secondary is white, perhaps a slight bluish tint.”

Even in suburban light, color contrast doubles pop beautifully. The Cygnus 30–31 pair — one orange supergiant, one white‑blue giant — is especially rewarding.

“Moving on to the double‑double in Lyra… very easy and clean to split… equal in magnitude and color, whiteness, with brilliant Vega in the field.”

Epsilon Lyrae is a perfect binocular target: bright, easy to find, and visually striking.

A little after midnight, the deep‑sky objects began to reveal themselves:

“Using the 7×50s for M13… you can definitely see two stars and a chubby little cloud… doable with the 7×50s, but in the 15×70s it is quite apparent and easy.”

“Following the tail of Aquila… M11 can be discerned as a tiny fuzzy patch… and again, far more apparent in the 15×70s.”

“Broche’s Cluster… the 15×70s picked it up readily… in the 7×50s you can definitely make out the coathanger asterism.”

“Above the teapot… M8… a fuzzy something in the 7×50s, more distinct in the 15×70s.”

These are exactly the kinds of objects that reward beginners: bright clusters, colorful doubles, recognizable asterisms, and nebulae that appear as soft glows rather than faint whispers.

Sharing the Views

A few nights after that backyard session, I brought my 15×70 Oberwerk binoculars to the HAL public star party and set them up on a mount so visitors could enjoy a steady view. It turned into one of the most rewarding outreach evenings I’ve had in a while. People were genuinely surprised at what a simple pair of binoculars could do – the Moon’s craters sharp and bright, Epsilon Lyrae cleanly split into its twin “headlights,” and M13 hanging there as a distant, ancient ball of unresolved starlight. Many had never looked through binoculars for astronomy before, and seeing their reactions – that mix of delight and amazement – was a reminder of how powerful these simple instruments can be for opening the sky to newcomers.

Binoculars offer something telescopes often don’t: confidence. You learn the sky faster. You recognize patterns. You begin to understand how objects relate to one another. And you get immediate success – something every beginner needs. Even for us veteran star gazers, an evening in the lounge chair with a pair of binoculars to scan the sky makes observing less of a technical challenge and more of a simple pleasure.

I still think back to that Maine porch experience, spending hours with a simple pair of binoculars discovering the summer sky one field at a time, being surprised at just how much I could pick out from that dark sky. My hope is that more folks could discover the heavens, and binoculars are one of the best ways I know of to begin that journey.

A Jovian Superfecta

Earlier this month I was hoping to get in another imaging session for the current Jupiter apparition, with the planet still standing relatively high as the May twilight deepened. I started in “White Light” (color) and quickly saw that the Great Red Spot (GRS) was rising and so I’d have it well positioned. The seeing however, was definitely sub-par, probably a 3 (maybe a 2?) out of 10.

Yet even under this mediocre seeing, it occurred to me that this was an opportunity to try for a wavelength superfecta, capturing the planet and its iconic storm in four different lights: WL, Infrared (IR), Methane (CH4) (UV), and Ultraviolet. It was a little challenging due to the low transmission I get in the CH4 and UV bands, causing the frames-per-second to drop dramatically. In such situations I leverage 2×2 binning, which groups four pixels into one. That makes the target effectively brighter, boosting the signal through this very dark filter. But it also reduces the image scale, so Jupiter appears slightly smaller and less detailed than in my unbinned captures.

The result was an interesting mosaic showcasing how Jupiter presents a different and scientifically valuable appearance in these varying bands of light. Each wavelength highlights a different altitude, particle size, or scattering process in the Jovian atmosphere. The GRS, being a deep, long‑lived anticyclone with complex vertical structure, becomes a perfect case study.

White Light

White light is the “baseline Jupiter”, the view closest to what the eye sees. It is a blend of scattering from cloud tops and deeper layers. The GRS’s color comes from chromophores (complex molecules produced by photochemistry) concentrated in its upper haze.

• The GRS appears as a salmon‑colored oval embedded in the South Equatorial Belt.
• Contrast is moderate because white light integrates photons from many atmospheric layers.

Ultraviolet (UV)

UV images emphasize high‑altitude hazes and aerosols. UV absorption is dominated by photochemical hazes. The GRS has a thick, vertically extended haze cap that blocks UV, making it stand out as a dark feature.

• The GRS typically appears dark in UV because its upper haze absorbs strongly at short wavelengths.
• Surrounding high-altitude haze regions appear bright.
• The UV view often looks “sharper” because it isolates the uppermost layers.

Infrared

Near‑IR wavelengths penetrate deeper into the cloud deck. IR brightness correlates with cloud-top altitude and temperature. The GRS’s anticyclonic upwelling lifts ammonia clouds to higher, colder levels, making it a strong IR reflector.

• The GRS often appears bright in IR because its cloud tops are higher and colder than surrounding regions.
• Belts and zones invert their contrast relative to visible light.
• Even though seeing is often steadier in IR, on this particular night it was not a huge help with poor conditions.

Methane Band

The methane absorption band is the most altitude‑selective of the four. Methane imaging isolates the highest cloud layers, with low-altitude features vanishing almost completely. The GRS’s brightness confirms its vertical extent and the strong upwelling at its center.

• Bright areas in CH₄ indicate very high-altitude clouds that reflect sunlight before it can be absorbed by methane.
• The GRS is usually bright in methane band because its cloud tops extend high into the upper troposphere.
• If you look closely you can also make out tiny NN-LRS-1 near the same longitude of the GRS but in the Northern Polar Region of the planet.

The GRS changes appearance because each wavelength samples a different combination of scattering, absorption, and cloud height. The storm’s vertical structure is complex: a tall central canopy, deep roots, and a surrounding turbulent wake. Multi‑wavelength imaging is one of the few ways amateurs can probe that structure directly.

If you’ve never tried imaging Jupiter beyond one-shot color, you may want to consider expanding your armamentarium to include some additional filters. I’d start off with an IR as it is the easiest and also has the advantage of being a mild antidote to poor seeing. Later on adding a simple UV or methane filter can expand your imaging opportunities of the planet and provide additional valuable scientific information. Jupiter rewards curiosity – and it rewards imagers who look at it in more than one light.

More Than Pretty Pictures

Five years ago, when I first took over posting gallery submissions, the ALPO’s Digital Section was still operating much as it had for decades: images came in, were displayed, and had little consistency in terms of meeting basic guidelines that would capture useful information about the image. Certainly useful, but not easily searchable, and not structured in a way that supported scientific work. That was the moment I began the long process of indexing every Solar and planetary submission, extracting timestamps, system longitudes, filters, and feature tags. The goal was simple: turn the gallery into a true image repository.

Today, with more than 40,000 indexed images and sketches, that transformation is finally visible. And this year’s Jupiter Pro–Am collaboration tied to JWST and Juno’s Perijove 81 proved its value. Because the gallery is now searchable, we were able to provide the research team with rapid ground‑based context during a very narrow observing window. That is exactly what “from stargazing to science” should mean — not a slogan, but a capability.

But the strength of the repository depends entirely on the quality of the observations our members submit. And with nearly 95% of modern contributions coming from imagers, we need to ensure that members feel confident producing clean, scientifically useful data.

That is why we are launching the SPLICE Mentoring Program this summer.

SPLICE — Solar, Planetary, and Lunar Imaging with Computer Enhancement — reflects the modern workflow of high‑resolution imaging far better than the old “lucky imaging” label. The process is systematic: capture, rank, align, stack, sharpen. Don Parker demonstrated this long before digital sensors were common, and his legacy forms the backbone of the SPLICE approach.

The mentoring program is designed for ALPO members who are new to imaging or looking to refine their technique. Participants can work with ALPO‑provided sample videos or with their own data, learning to use accessible open‑source tools to produce scientifically valuable results. The goal is not just a prettier picture — it’s a contribution that strengthens the long‑term archive.

Because this is a one‑on‑one program, we will begin modestly with one to two mentoring sessions per month. My hope is that experienced ALPO imagers will step forward as additional mentors so we can expand capacity over time.

Revitalizing the ALPO will come from building confidence, strengthening community, and helping observers feel that their work matters. The SPLICE Mentoring Program is one more step toward making “from stargazing to science” a reality, and ensuring that the next 40,000 images are even more valuable than the first.

The Beauty of M35

Winter’s sky offers no shortage of showpieces, and for me Messier 35, the bright open cluster resting at the foot of Castor in Gemini, is one of those that I have to check in on. M35 has long been one of my favorite winter targets. It’s easy to find, bright enough to pop even from suburban skies, and rich enough to reward everything from binocular sweeps to deep imaging sessions.

Through binoculars or a small telescope, the cluster spills across the field as a loose spray of mostly white stars, though attentive observers will notice a few with a soft yellowish tint. It is an easy star hop at the base of the constellation, from 3^rd magnitude m and h out to Gem 1 (Propus). Once there our target is only a degree to the north. If you have dark skies (or a large enough scope) you are in for a double treat as just southwest of M35 lies the much fainter and more compact NGC 2158. Under suburban skies it often hides in the background glow, but from darker locations it resolves into a tiny, grainy knot resembling a globular cluster. This side-kick is a distant, older cluster five times farther away than M35 itself. I still remember the first time I caught it from a friend’s property in western Maryland’s dark countryside. Ever since, it’s been a personal benchmark for a dark sky.

This year, with Jupiter entering Gemini, I had hoped for a reprise of one of my favorite celestial pairings. M35 sits only a couple of degrees north of the ecliptic, and when Jupiter wanders through the constellation the giant planet can glide surprisingly close to the cluster. One such moment came in the spring of 1990, when Jupiter passed less than a degree south of M35 – a striking sight in a low‑power eyepiece of my 6” RV-6, creating a memory that stays with you for decades.

With a clear and not bitterly-cold January night unfolding, and with my HEM27 mount freshly repaired, I decided to test the repair as well as my plate-solving technique by targeting M35. After a quick polar alignment, I asked NINA to plate‑solve for M35 and – to my great delight – it did so flawlessly, undoubtably saving me time. As the first 15 second frame came in using the ASI2600MC I could make out not only M35 but that NCG 2158 was well within the frame. I kicked off a capture loop and checked in every 15 minutes or so to ensure things were still moving smoothly.

I ended up capturing 325 frames at 15 seconds each, and after tossing the outliers, 284 made it into the final integration. Processing the data in PixInsight was its own adventure. I leaned on Copilot for guidance, with mixed results – some guidance was helpful, others sent me wandering down dead ends or into outdated interface paths. But persistence paid off. After working through using the Weighted Batch Pre-processing (WBPP) script I ended up with a final image that I’m genuinely pleased with. The slight variety of colors in bright and showy M35 are seen and little NGC 2158 is fainter and yellower, reflecting its age and distance.

M35 never disappoints. Whether you’re sweeping with binoculars, hunting for NGC 2158 from a dark site, or capturing hundreds of frames through a modern imaging setup, it’s a reminder of how much beauty sits quietly in the winter sky, waiting for us to look up.

An All-Nighter with Jove

I always look forward to Jupiter oppositions in the winter zodiac. The current apparition has the giant planet hosted among the stars of Gemini, riding about as high as possible in the night sky for mid‑northern observers. The combination of it gliding above the worst of the turbulent atmospheric and long January nights (where in theory you might capture an entire rotation in a single session) are exciting prospects.

But winter is winter - especially in the Baltimore area. The cold is one thing to contend with, but even more of a spoiler are the clouds and unstable seeing. I’ve often felt that our region’s winter skies offer fewer usable nights than any other season, and it turns out that impression isn’t just grumbling. According to long‑term climatology, the region’s winter sky is overcast or mostly cloudy about half the time. And while I cannot find data on “seeing” I would bet we get most clear nights checking in at a 1-2 seeing level on the scale of 1-10.

Which is why the night of January 7–8, 2026 felt like such a small miracle.

The forecast from Astrospheric earlier that day told the usual winter story: cloud cover and seeing models leaning pessimistic, barely reaching “acceptable” levels. The kind of forecast that normally has me planning a short session – an hour, maybe ninety minutes – before the clouds roll in or the seeing collapses (or the cold gets the best of me). But heck, why not roll the dice? After all, Jupiter was a couple days from opposition, so prime time.

When I stepped outside around 8:30 PM, the first surprise was the temperature. It wasn’t bitterly cold, which meant I could stay chair‑side instead of retreating indoors between captures. I’d already set the scope out earlier to cool so I started my “pre-flight checklist”

• Confirm the spotting scope alignment
• Dial in a very solid collimation
• Check transparency (a respectable 7–8 by my estimate)
• Gauge the seeing (somewhere between 3 and 5, with brief moments of better steadiness)

With the QHY camera running through SharpCap, I was getting a very respectable 130+ fps in white light. I began a cadence of four‑run sequences every 15–20 minutes, each run a two‑minute capture. Europa was approaching the disk, with a transit predicted just after midnight – another incentive to keep going as long as the sky allowed.

And, surprisingly, the sky did cooperate. As I wrapped up each imaging run I was like a gambler pushing his luck, thinking “just one more capture before you call it quits”. Before I knew it, it was midnight and I had seen about half a Jupiter rotation at this point. Now my appetite was whetted for that elusive full rotation capture. I did some quick calculations in my head and figured I’d have to hang in there until close to 4 a.m. in order to see the GRS, which had started off setting, come back into view. I decided to go for it and did a meridian flip to ensure I could track the giant planet as it headed west in the sky.

I continued performing imaging captures but now roughly every 30-60 minutes, retreating inside between them not so much to warm up but to put my feet up and get a little rest. The days of staying up all night and at my scope may well be behind me!

By 3 a.m. I could see that some patchy clouds were finally working their way into my region, dropping the transparency a bit. About an hour later the Moon showed a bit of a halo around it, further evidence of deteriorating conditions. And while that sort of haze is not always a killer for seeing, in this instance I could see that it, too, was slipping as the early morning wore on. I took the final sequence at from 4:15–4:30 a.m. with the seeing slipping down to about a 3. But I had it – there was the GRS rising into view signaling I had seen the full planet’s cloud features pass in front of me.  

Despite the uneven seeing in the early morning hours, the dataset was strong enough to build a full cylindrical map in WinJUPOS. The region around the GRS is a little darker than ideal, but that’s simply the geometry of the night: I never caught it near the central meridian, so the limb‑darkened frames had to carry that section. Still, the map is a personal accomplishment that captures the character of Jupiter beautifully for that date, revealing many long-term features such as the GRS, Oval BA, the SSTB storms, and many others!

Yes, nights like that are rare in January. The forecasts don’t encourage you. The statistics don’t encourage you. And yet, every so often, the sky relents just enough to reward persistence. My reward on this night was a nearly full rotation, a Europa transit, some enjoyable visual observing of the planet between imaging runs, and a cool map documenting Jupiter as it came to opposition in 2026. Yep - if this is how my 2026 observing is going to go, I’ll take it!

Test Driving the Seestar S50

For a while now I’ve had mixed feelings about the new generation of “smart telescopes.” On one hand, they make astrophotography astonishingly easy - almost too easy. On the other, they lack that soulful connection you get when you lean into an eyepiece and let ancient photons fall directly onto your retina. I’ve written about this tension before.

So when the Howard Astronomical League set up a Seestar S50 loaner program, I finally got around to signing up. Curiosity won out. I wanted to see whether this little automated wonder would feel like a shortcut or a revelation.

Unpacking the Little Robot

The club keeps the Seestar neatly packed in a compact carrying case, along with a sturdy tripod that’s a major upgrade from the tiny one ZWO ships with the unit. They also included a micro–leveler, a excellent addition that makes fine-tuning the setup much easier and helps ensure accurate tracking and plate solving.

Before my first night out, I watched a few tutorial videos and ran through the pre-flight checklist: compass calibration, app installation, all the usual rituals of modern astronomy.

Field Test: Suburbia vs. 10-Second Exposures

All my testing happened in my Towson backyard, which sits squarely in Bortle 8 territory. If the Seestar could perform here, it likely could perform anywhere. I spent some time scouting the darkest corners of the yard, trying to dodge the neighbor’s floodlight on one side and a porchlight on the other.

My first clear night came on November 23rd in the form of a crisp, 40° temps under clear skies, well suited for a trial run.

The app interface took a little getting used to. At first I kept losing track of how to return to the live stacking view, but after a few minutes the layout started to make sense. Once leveled, the Seestar slewed to my first target: M1, the Crab Nebula.

And then the magic happened.

Within a couple of 10-second exposures, a ghostly patch appeared on the screen — unmistakably the Crab. The Seestar had nailed the target on the first try. I left it running while I went inside to warm up and watch TV. When I returned before bed, it had quietly accumulated more than 90 minutes of data. The live-stacked image already showed color and the classic filamentary tendrils. A bit of elementary post-processing the next day produced a genuinely respectable image.

Not bad for a telescope the size of a thermos.

Chasing the Pleiades

Another target I absolutely wanted to test was M45, to see whether the Seestar could pull out the delicate blue reflection nebulosity around the cluster. I used the “extended field” mode, which stitches slightly offset frames to widen the field of view – a clever trick for large objects.

It worked far better than I expected. After 75 minutes, the Merope Nebula was clearly visible, and the whole frame had that soft, ethereal glow that makes the Pleiades so arresting in appearance. A little post-processing turned it into another keeper.

A Productive Two Months

Over roughly eight weeks, I captured:

• M1 (Crab Nebula)
• M38
• The Owl Cluster
• M42
• NGC 1055
• NGC 2403

Each target reinforced the same impression: the Seestar is remarkably capable for its size and price.

Where the Seestar Stumbles

As much as I enjoyed using it, the experience wasn’t flawless.

• Forced firmware updates: One night I had to wait for an update with no option to defer. At a dark-sky site, that would be maddening.
• Wi-Fi frustrations: Despite tutorials and configuring the required low-bandwidth network, I never managed to get the Seestar to connect through my home Wi-Fi. Being able to run it from the comfort of my bedroom would have been amazing.
• Occasional boot hiccups: A few times the unit simply wouldn’t connect to the iPad until I restarted it.
• Wind sensitivity: Even with the sturdy tripod, a mildly breezy night caused enough buffeting that the Seestar rejected a large fraction of frames, causing me to abandon the imaging run.
• Limited focal length: At 250mm, it excels at wide-field star clusters and large, bright nebulae, but for targeting the multitude of planetary nebulae or quirky galaxies (some of the object I love most) there just isn’t enough magnification there to get the job done.

Verdict: A Keeper (Just Not My Keeper… Yet)

The Seestar S50 won me over. It won’t replace my Vixen and ASI2600 for deep, detailed imaging, but it’s a delightful, capable, and genuinely fun piece of gear. The ability to set it up, walk away, and come back to a finished stack is liberating. I can easily imagine running a Seestar in the backyard on a DSO while I’m out front lucky-imaging a planet.

If ZWO ever releases a version with a longer focal length – or the ability to insert something like a 2× Barlow – I’d be seriously tempted. For now, I’ll happily borrow the HAL unit again this summer and see what else this little robot can do.

A Night of Near Ring-Plane Crossing and a Titan Transit

As we close out 2025, Saturn offered one last moment of subtle drama before it passes Eastern quadrature on its way to a springtime Solar conjunction. On the evening of November 22nd, Towson enjoyed a brief window of clear skies – just enough for me to take in a rare combination of events: a Titan transit that was already in progress as dusk fell, and Saturn’s rings appearing as thin as we would see them all year (in fact, as thin as we’ll see them for the next 15 years!). The true ring-plane crossing back in the spring was lost to solar conjunction, so this November evening became the next closest recreation of the event.

Visual Attempt with the 6-inch RV‑6

My goal was simple but ambitious: could I visually detect Titan’s silhouette against Saturn’s disk during the transit? I began the session with my trusty 6" RV‑6 reflector on the HEM27 mount. Unfortunately, the mount was having a rough go of it. About every ten seconds or so it would stutter, just enough to be annoying but not enough to prevent visual work. 

I tried a few eyepiece combinations and filters in search of the “sweet spot” for the observation. I began with the excellent 8mm TMB eyepiece with a light green filter, but the image seemed a tad small at 150x. I then swapped that out for the Celestron Ultima Edge 15mm with the 2.5× TeleVue Barlow, yielding a still crisp view at 200x.

The seeing would occasionally steady for a few brief moments as the planet drifted silently by with the tracking turned off, floating through the field as if using a Dob. The ring shadow was unmistakable and striking as a crisp, dark line slicing across the globe. With the rings nearly edge-on, they looked like a taut thread stretched across the planet. Subtle dusky shading flanked the ring plane in both hemispheres, though neither side stood out more strongly.

But Titan itself? After twenty minutes of careful, unstrained observing with me perched on a stool peering into the eyepiece, I had to concede defeat. Whether it was the limits of the 6-inch aperture, the low contrast of the event, or simply my older eyes, the moon’s silhouette never definitively popped into view.

Imaging Session

After wrapping up the visual attempt, I moved to the front driveway where the Cyrus 10" Newtonian had been cooling. By 8 p.m. I was capturing data through the Baader 685 nm deep red filter. The seeing was average at best, perhaps even slipping below that as the night went on, and transparency hovered around 6–7/10 with a haze creeping in by a little after 9 p.m.

Even so, Saturn was rewarding. The rings were astonishingly thin on the live feed displayed on the laptop, and both the north and south equatorial belts were faintly visible. At 8:21 p.m. I noticed Titan as a small dot hugging the planet’s limb, promising an interesting capture from the night’s effort. I also played with the settings a bit, increasing the gain and exposure to brighten the disk and improve the odds of recording Titan and maybe another of the smaller moons. Conditions continued to deteriorate as we headed towards 9 o’clock, and with haze thickening I decided not to stay out to try to include a Jupiter run in the evening’s efforts.

Final Images

The processed results from the 10-inch show Saturn in its late‑2025 austerity: a nearly ringless world with a bold shadow line and muted atmospheric bands that are far better defined using the deep red filter. The WL (white light) image required some work to bring out any coloration. The composed final image which blends the color shot with the IR as the luminance channel serves as a satisfying souvenir of the 2025 near ring crossing event.

Chasing Comet Lemmon

Last October, excitement was building in the astronomy community about Comet Lemmon (C/2025 A3), which was predicted to reach around 3rd magnitude – bright enough to be seen with the naked eye from a dark site. As the comet’s closest approach to Earth drew near, I began planning a photography mission to capture this icy visitor. With the closest approach set for October 21, I kept a close eye on the weather for Monday the 20th. The forecast was uncertain, with a storm system expected to clear just in time for the evening. I decided to focus on photography, using my trusty 7x50 Celestron binoculars for visual observation. After dusting off the Star Adventurer Tracker – dormant since my trip to the 2023 Annular Eclipse in New Mexico – I began scouting locations within a few hours’ drive.

A light pollution map led me to the Zumbrun Overlook in Green Ridge State Forest, between Hagerstown and Cumberland. Online photos showed a promising platform with a clear western horizon. I opted for an overnight trip, staying in Cumberland to avoid a late-night drive home. I reached out to my astro-photography friend Steve, but he was busy with another shoot. Fortunately, Deb was interested in joining, and we looked forward to enjoying the fall foliage on our drive. After morning appointments, we headed west on I-70, stopping for lunch in Hagerstown before arriving at our hotel in Cumberland.

Zumbrun Overlook

After checking in, I drove out to the Zumbrun Overlook near Flintstone to get familiar with the site. The spot looked ideal, though a tree at the front of the platform meant I’d need to choose my position carefully depending on the comet’s location. My goal was to set up by 6:15 p.m., but dinner at Puccini’s ran late, and I arrived at the overlook around 6:30 p.m. At the overlook, two amateur astronomers from NOVAC had already claimed the front row, so I set up behind them. The sky was very clear, with moderate winds and a limiting magnitude of about 5.5. As twilight deepened, Comet Lemmon became visible in Boötes, just above and to the right of Arcturus. The clouds cleared just in time, and although I had to shoot over the NOVAC observers, the Star Adventurer tracker performed well. Deb joined me at the overlook to enjoy the overhead Milky Way, which was on full display.

Around 7:45 p.m. I spent some time observing Comet Lemmon through 7x50 binoculars. The comet showed a bright coma with a tail extending roughly 1.5° northeast. No greenish color was detected; the coma appeared white. I estimated its brightness at about 4th magnitude – just visible with averted vision. The scene was enhanced by the presence of orange r Boo and blue s Boo in the field. One of the NOVAC astronomers also graciously shared a view of the comet through her 8” SCT (but it seemed to lack a sharp focus).

Comet Lemmon Amid Boötes

Arriving back home the next day I was disappointed to discover my images were slightly out of focus. I salvaged them somewhat using BlurXTerminator in PixInsight on each individual shot before stacking them in Sequator. Despite some streaky clouds photobombing Lemmon, the final image captured was reasonable and serves as a wonderful memento from that night. While not spectacular, Comet Lemmon 2025/A3 was a wonderful visitor from the deep freeze of our outer solar system.

A Shadow Missed But A Surge Gained

On the evening of September 19th, I was gearing up to record one of the final Titan shadow transits of the season. An ALPO colleague had tipped me off to the upcoming event, a rare alignment that won’t grace our skies again until August 2038. If I’m still around at 83, I’ll be chasing it again. Luckily, for this particular event the forecast from Astropheric promised above-average seeing, and I was eager to make the most of it.

Knowing the transit window would be brief (just 2.5 hours, with only a portion ideal for imaging) I prepped the scope early, aligning the finder and checking collimation before trying (unsuccessfully) to grab a few hours of sleep. By 1 a.m., I was back outside, scope thermally settled, laptop in hand, and Saturn hanging clear in the sky.

I began imaging with the ASI178MC, focusing on the northern polar region where Titan’s shadow should have been visible. But something seemed off. The shadow normally is like taking a paper punch to the globe, creating a very high-contrast object that is readily detected. Even the disk of Titan, with a much lower albedo level compared to the clouds, should have been evident. I dutifully continued on capturing AVI runs, thinking perhaps I just needed to be closer to mid-transit for it to be visible on the laptop monitor. 

As we approached 2 a.m. I decided to do a quick processing run to investigate the situation.  The mystery was promptly solved by the outcome: I had miscalculated the Universal Time conversion. The transit wasn’t happening for another 24 hours. A rookie mistake - one I’d like to blame on the emotional fog of having been laid off from my SSA contract earlier that day. That’s my story, and I’m sticking to it!

Still, the seeing was solid, so I pressed on. I captured both white light and Baader 685nm “Deep Red” filtered images, the latter always better at teasing out Saturn’s atmospheric banding. Of course, the grayscale results of the Baader image lack the visual charm of color, but I’d recently watched a tutorial by Damian Peach on blending R-IR data as a luminance layer with color images. The video skipped a few key steps, so I played around in Photoshop and sought the advice of my friend Steve Stewart (a PS master), experimenting until I found a technique that worked. The final composite was well worth the effort - sharp, detailed, and visually satisfying.

One surprise emerged during processing: the rings were noticeably brighter than in my earlier summer captures. Comparing the September 19th image to one from July, the difference was striking. Then it hit me. Saturn was mere hours from opposition on the 21st. Could this be the Seeliger effect, the so-called “opposition surge”? It certainly looked that way. The rings, previously muted, had taken on a luminous sheen, likely due to the Sun-Saturn-Earth alignment minimizing shadows and maximizing reflectivity.

I’ll be curious to see if the rings dim again in my next imaging session. For now, I’ll chalk this night up as a win despite the missed transit. The imaging run delivered a beautiful Saturn and a reminder that even a seasoned observer with half a century behind the eyepiece can still slip up. 

A Regal Conjunction

On September 19, 2025, a rare celestial event unfolded in the pre-dawn skies over Maryland: the conjunction of the Moon, Venus, and Regulus. I had high anticipation for this conjunction for several reasons. First, the tight grouping of the three celestial bodies was remarkable. Venus, the waning crescent Moon, and Regulus (Leo the Lion’s lucida) were packed within a 1-degree field of view. This meant that they were close enough to fit under a fingertip held at arm’s length, or easily with my telephoto lens racked out to 300mm.

So often the word “rare” is thrown about with abandon in regard to astronomical events. But this one does merit the appellation. A similarly tight grouping won’t occur again until September 22, 2041, when the trio will fit within a 7.2° circle. My research could not find any evidence of another triple conjunction from Maryland that will fit within a 1.0° field of view for at least the next 50 years.

Preparation

A few days out, the weather forecast looked very favorable for the morning of September 19^th, so I set about planning for it. I jumped on the Heavens-Above website and used their interactive sky chart and twilight times to get a preview. Those tools let me know that the event would be low on my eastern horizon, which was a problem due to the trees and houses that blocked my eastern view from home.

I needed a better venue and thought that somewhere along the nearby Loch Raven Reservoir might offer a clearer eastern horizon. I ruled out any trails as it could be risky navigating an unfamiliar path in the dark while carrying my camera equipment. Exploring virtually with Google maps, I noticed several small “observation decks” along the eastern side of the Dulaney Valley road bridge that crosses the reservoir. By midweek I had a game plan: park my car off on the shoulder near the bridge and walk a quarter mile to the platform.

The day before the conjunction, I weighed doing a reconnaissance of the bridge, anticipating that I would swing by right after work around 3:30 p.m. However, fate had other plans. Around 10 a.m., I received news that I was being laid off as part of budget cuts and had to hand in my laptop by 2 p.m. Given that 2026 was going to be my last year of part-time work as an OCR software developer, the layoff was not a significant impact, although there was the emotional aspect of no longer being employed after over half a century of work. The immediate upside was that it gave me an early departure time to head out to the reservoir. My drive out to the bridge validated my plans to park the car just before the bridge and walk out to the first fishing platform.

The Conjunction

I set my alarm for 4:30 a.m. Thursday evening, but I was up before the alarm went off. I dressed quickly and hustled out the door with my camera. I was at the pull-off area south of the bridge within a few minutes, parking the car and gathering my equipment. As I used my cell phone’s torch to light the path out to the platform, I pushed away the slight anxiety that creeps in, that sense of caution mixed with danger when doing something like this.

As I rounded the corner and stepped onto the bridge I saw my prize: an ocher-colored Moon rising, with Venus hanging just below it, both attenuated by the atmosphere. Regulus was not visible at that point, either hiding behind the trees or extinguished by the horizon haze. I was a bit surprised to see the Moon was in front of me rather than to my right over the water. As I advanced towards the bridge, the tree line slowly loomed taller and taller. By the time I was at the platform, the Moon and Venus were just skirting the treetops on the opposite shore. While not the imagined view of Moon rising over the waters of the reservoir, the setting was certainly beautiful.

The Crescent Moon & Venus

I set up the camera and bracketed a few shots of the slender orange crescent juxtaposed with a cream-colored Venus dangling below it. Time passed quickly, and as the duo climbed out of the haze, I could soon see Regulus hanging below Venus, forming a remarkable straight line. The earthshine was now evident, adding to the sublime nature of the appulse. For the next 45 minutes, I captured images at various focal lengths and exposures. Even at the full 300mm of the telephoto lens, all three members of the conjunction were in the frame due to the tightness of the conjunction. I knew the more challenging aspect in replicating with the camera what my eyes were witnessing would be the brightness contrast of these three. Venus outshone Regulus by about 100 times, while the Moon was just 5–6% illuminated, creating a dramatic visual contrast that our logarithmic eyes can handle well but pixels struggle to faithfully reproduce. Some things are just seemingly made for naked eye observation.

Moon, Venus, Regulus (and earthshine)

I had to contend with the southbound traffic coming from Jarrettsville Pike, timing my shots to miss their oncoming headlights intruding into my frame, even with the lens hood attached. I also noted that at times when some vehicles passed by on the bridge, there was some vibration, which likely ruined some shots. After about an hour and with dawn beginning to lighten the horizon, I packed up the camera and began the trip back home.

Conjunction reflected in the water below

As I pulled up in front of my house around 6:20 a.m., I assessed where the Moon was. It was still hidden behind trees, so I walked around to the backyard, camera and tripod in hand. It was not until I moved to the farthest southwest corner of the yard that the trio of conjunction companions cleared the rooftops. I fired off a couple of shots as the eastern sky gradually grew brighter, concluding my engagement with this magnificent conjunction by about 6:30 a.m.

The conjunction from my backyard

Witnessing this triple conjunction of the Moon, Venus, and Regulus was absolutely an unforgettable experience. The planning, the anticipation, and the sheer beauty of the event made it a night to remember, and the images will serve as a wonderful reminder of that September morning out at Loch Raven as the heavens aligned.

Mercury!

As an avid planetary imager, I've had my fair share of accomplishments, but Mercury has always eluded me. One of my goals for 2025 was to end that frustration and finally capture an image of the smallest planet in our solar system. This current mid-to-late August apparition offered the best opportunity of the year. Fall morning apparitions provide the most favorable geometry, with the planet's solar separation translating to vertical height above the horizon due to the inclination of the ecliptic in the autumnal pre-dawn sky.

Due to the trees (which need trimming this winter), Mercury must reach about 40° altitude to clear them, necessitating a daytime observation. That’s not too difficult for Venus, but it posed a bigger challenge for Mercury, which isn’t visible in the finder scope. Fortunately, the ALPO webinar last spring on daytime planetary imaging provided valuable tips and encouragement, confirming that I had the equipment and skills needed for success.

The weather from spring through much of summer this year was dismal. Clouds were the norm, and even when the skies cleared, seeing conditions were often below average or marred by smoke from the Canadian wildfires. So when a forecast for below-average transparency but average seeing presented itself on August 17th during the favorable morning apparition, I decided to commit to an imaging run.

I stepped out at 4 a.m. to align my telescope, only to be greeted by a strong haze that limited visibility to 2nd magnitude stars. By 9 a.m., the clouds had worsened, making it difficult to even spot the fat crescent Moon. However, I managed to bring Mercury into the camera’s field of view and run some captures. The resulting image showed a chubby crescent phase with little to no discernible albedo features - a technical success, but not truly satisfying.

With a forecast for better transparency and above-average seeing on the morning of Saturday, August 23rd, I decided to give it another shot, with Mercury just past dichotomy. I set up my scope to cool and went to bed Friday evening, again waking at 4 a.m. to align the CGX-L mount. The alignment was good enough to bring targets into the low-power view. After aligning, I did a couple of lucky imaging runs on Saturn in color under pretty good seeing conditions. I then moved on to Jupiter for more practice and captured an IR image as dawn approached.

Then, despite being plugged in, my laptop died unexpectedly. Clearly, the recently purchased AC adapter will need to be returned. Frustrated, I took it back upstairs to charge while waiting for Mercury to clear the tree line at 8 a.m.

Returning to the driveway, I was pleased to see clear blue skies with only minor clouds. The morning breeze was gentle, and transparency and seeing conditions seemed promising. I started by slewing to Venus to practice my hand controller motions, ensuring that one short press to the right and 2–3 presses up would bring the slewed object into range.

Finally, I slewed to Mercury for the moment of truth—and the planet popped into view! Initially, it looked turbulent, but after adjusting the focus manually and using SharpCap’s Fourier Detail Detection routine, I was able to achieve a good focus. The strong surface brightness of the innermost planet allowed for high frame rates, and I adjusted the exposure, gain, and region of interest to achieve over 100 frames per second.

The planet danced wildly due to the rising Sun and atmospheric currents, with only fleeting moments where the half-moon phase was discernible. I captured a series of three 3-minute videos at 3ms exposure and a gain of 180, followed by experimentation with higher gain and lower exposure to increase the frame rate. In total, I captured about 20 minutes of video.

Processing the data later that day revealed good-quality images, with sufficient seeing to produce a reasonable stack. I whittled down nearly 64,000 frames from the 3ms videos to create a nice image. I also experimented with AstroSurface for the first time to sharpen the result and was pleased with the tool.

While this face of Mercury lacked high-contrast albedo features, my image showed a mottled surface, reflecting large-scale features. After all, at only 6.6 arcseconds in size, I’m targeting something roughly the size of a tomato seed viewed from across a football field! With this success under my belt, I’m looking forward to making Mercury imaging an annual event—weather permitting!

Achieving a Bucket List Item

There are certain astronomical events that intersect our lives only episodically, and Titan shadow transits has been one of those elusive moments for me. Years ago, as a young amateur seeing Jupiter’s moons cast their shadows on the giant planet, I wondered why I did not see that with Saturn. Of course, I soon realized that Saturnian moons do not do this routinely due to the planet’s axial tilt of 27°, lifting (or dropping) their orbits so that they don’t cut in front of the planet when it is facing the Sun. Only when Saturn is around the time of its equinox (when its rings appear very thin) do the moons begin to intersect the Sun’s plane as they move in front of their host planet. We are roughly halfway through such a season with the ringed planet having reached autumnal equinox for its Northern hemisphere last May. I know that only a few months remain of this opportunity, my last realistic chance for years to come. The next similar alignment won’t take place until 2038, at which point I’ll be a much older observer, perhaps with a little more wisdom but a little less stamina for predawn adventures.

Given that Titan orbits the planet every 16 days these transits will take place only once or twice a month. And given that the orbit is almost exactly 16 days you have to be on the right side of Earth with Saturn in a reasonably dark sky. Thankfully the Western hemisphere is well position for the current series. The window opened as Saturn emerged from Solar conjunction this spring. My concerns of missing it have been slowly nagging me as I watched the May and June windows be clouded out and the July 2^nd opportunity unavailable as I was away.

July 18th was on my calendar as the next transit, but as it approached it came with iffy forecasts: some sources predicted hopelessly thick clouds, while others suggested there might just be enough breaks to make an attempt worthwhile. I set my alarm anyway and, with a quiet stubbornness familiar to many amateur astronomers, rose at 3:15 a.m. to scan the skies. It was quite overcast but there still were occasional breaks through which Saturn would pop out for a few minutes. I rolled out the Cyrus 10” f/6 Newtonian and performed a quick mirror collimation.

I decided to prioritize visual observation rather than seeing it on a laptop screen, wanting to witness this event with my own eyes. When a sizable break appeared a little after 4 a.m., I popped in my 8mm TMB eyepiece and Meade 2x Barlow and brought the planet into focus. Perched on the first rung of my step ladder, I saw the planet as a light tan orb with the rings as a spike through it. I continued studying the planet, waiting for those fleeting moments of steady seeing. My first micro-glimpse was uncertain – did I see something or was it a trick from my aging eyes? But after a couple of minutes the dark dot continued to pop in & out of view, clinching it as the shadow of Saturn’s largest moon.

All too soon the clouds reclaimed the view. I swapped out the eyepiece for camera in hopes they would relent for a few minutes so that I could grab an image of the event. But it was an hour of frustration as the planet never emerged for an encore. But while the imaging effort failed, it was a pure delight and sense of accomplishment to witness that shadow cast across another world.

Last week the forecast for early Thursday morning caught my attention with partly cloudy skies and predicted above average seeing – rare conditions for this spring and early summer of 2025. Unable to pass on the prospect, I set out the Cyrus scope around 10 p.m. and settled in for a short rest with the alarm set for 3 a.m. As usual I ended up naturally waking up ahead of the alarm – odd how your body will do that! 

As I stepped outside I was greeted by warm, muggy air; just the sort of atmospheric hush that can often presage very good seeing. The malingering clouds were punctuated by generous breaks, one of which framed Saturn. I started the usual pre-observing sequence: mirror collimation, finder alignment before commanding the scope slew to Saturn. I centered it on the laptop screen and honed the focus, using the high-contrast edge of the rings' black shadow on Saturn’s bright equator as my guide.

Imaging began in the deep red/infrared wavelength using a Baader 685 filter, firing off five 2-minute video runs. Next I changed camera filters to begin a run of color captures. I did a quick stack and sharpen of one of the early video captures and was happy that it revealed delicate banding and even a hint of the Cassini Division. Encouraged by seeing conditions nudging up to 8/10, I pressed on to take a total of nine videos. Then with the laptop battery flagging I invested in capturing a nearby star’s Airy disk as a sharpening reference, managing two short videos before the battery gave up a little after 5 a.m. Time to pack it in and get ready for work!

The next day’s processing brought a pleasant surprise with the best Saturn images I’ve had in months. The R/IR set showcased layered bands, with the NEB and SEB standing out sharply. I was especially intrigued by the dark SPR, perhaps a lingering effect from Saturn’s long winter. The rings, though dim, opened enough to reveal the Cassini Division at their tips, while the planet’s shadow starkly cut off the rings where they ducked behind the globe.

The true showpiece, though, was the color session. Saturn’s pastel hues—blue to tan—came through beautifully. Again, the NEB and SEB dominated, while the SPR, though less sharply defined, was the darkest and bluest region on the disk. What caught my eye most was a subtle bluish belt in the NTR region, around latitude +50°, visible in each of the nine runs, so surely not an artifact. I’ll be curious to see if it turns up again in my next imaging session.

Observing opportunities given the lousy weather seem to come at a premium these days, especially when a quick shower and heading out to work follows your pre-dawn session. But these two sessions this month made every lost minute of sleep worth it. And among the many milestones, I can now add the thrill of witnessing a Titan Transit shadow—a sight I’ll not soon forget. 

Ghost Rings

It’s been a frustrating few months here—cloudy skies, a rainy spring, and the usual march of obligations that come with being back in the office. But I managed to sneak in a planetary session one Thursday morning before work. Not easy when you’ve got to be clocked in shortly after 6 a.m., but sometimes the sky gives you a narrow window, and you take it.

This was my first planetary observation in quite a while. I had the 10-inch f/6 Newtonian out, laser-collimated and ready. Saturn was hanging low and I didn’t have the time to work the ADC into the train, so I kept things simple. Seeing hovered around 6/10, transparency worse—perhaps a 4/10 thanks to persistent Canadian wildfire smoke over the mid-Atlantic.

Still, I managed a “deep red” imaging run, capturing Saturn shortly after its recent Autumnal Equinox last month. What struck me most when I finally got the planet centered and focused on the laptop screen was how dim the rings appeared.

At such a shallow B ring angle, the rings appeared ghostly, dimmer than I recall seeing them in years. On the laptop, they seemed to fade into the background, lacking the sharp border that can help in achieving focus. Visually, through the 10" at 187x, they were brighter—a shining needle skewering a ball of yarn—but still far from their previous brilliance.

So why the dimming? Some research was in order, and I must admit having AI as an assistant for such things is fantastic.

With us just past equinox the Sun is illuminating the rings edge-on. At this angle, the sunlight strikes the rings so obliquely that their icy particles scatter much less light toward us—especially in red and IR wavelengths. Unlike the globe, which reflects more consistently reflects the light back at the observer, the rings become dramatically muted under these conditions. And with the B angle so close to zero, we’re seeing not only less illumination but also less material: the thin plane of the rings reveals little vertical structure from this 

Interestingly, the rings looked darker than my last deep red image back in January of this year when we were still viewing the northern plane, despite having a similar B angle. The geometry and light-scattering behavior are that sensitive.

As for Saturn itself—the image shows subtle bands representing the NEB and SEB bands, and, interestingly, perhaps a darker SPR region. Overall it’s a small win in less-than-ideal conditions. This isn’t the showiest Saturn I’ve captured, but it’s a subtle reminder of just how dynamic the outer planets can be—not just from year to year, but from month to month in our own observing windows.