When We Look, What Do We See?

The more time I spend at the telescope looking at the fuzzy little far-away balls of light like this, I think about the folks through time that also looked up and away at the points of light in the sky. Many of them reasoned some quite clever conclusions from their observations of the heavens despite their instruments being far more crude than what we have access to, today.

Some folks looked up and applied the motion of the points of light overhead to their own world views.  Clearly, the skies were a backdrop for mankind, revolving around the earth.  Others made up stories of often vengeful and spitefully character-flawed deities.

An atheist might look at this far-away Galaxy and see a glaring omission from the Biblical account of creation.   A creationist might look up in awe of the power and scale of the Grand Design at work through the universe.

Me?  I prefer to use the eyes of a kid.   "Whoa!  That's Cool!"

Andromeda in November

I spent many-many hours in the backyard w/ my QHY Imager and the telescope tracking on M31 (Andromeda)

I shot 5 and 10 minute subs w. my Baader Planetarium Luminance, Red, Green and Blue Filters from my backyard in Spanish Fort, Alabama.

I then took 5 minute exposures via remote observatory time using their HA, OIII and SII filters and I mapped them in 'Hubble Color Mapping' alongside my LRGB exposures.

The Yellow/ Orange tint that was brought in with the additional filters / exposures, surprised me a bit but I do like the look, it's a bit different than some of the other shots I've seen of our neighboring Galaxy.

Space is awesome.