My dad got a new telescope this week. I drove up this afternoon to visit my people and check my dad's new toy out. It gets the Joolie seal of approval.
I was surprised to see that the skies in the suburbs aren't much darker than at my house, so close to downtown and the screamingly bright freeway. But we could still see the major stuff really well, and we could make out the faintest hints of all the stuff that's beyond the major stuff. Then I thought about how there's even more stuff beyond the stuff you can barely see, and even more stuff beyond that, and, and, and, and then I shook my head a couple times really fast and went inside for another glass of wine.
Of course, my favorite part was trying to take pictures of some of that stuff. My dad was a little disappointed that the pictures weren't sharper or more spectacular, but he was using a tiny digital point-and-shoot in conjunction with this big telescope. They're not Hubble quality, but I still think they came out pretty cool.
A composite of my dad's pictures of Saturn, run through a stacking program and tweaked in Photoshop.
M42, the Orion nebula, same treatment.
My picture of Saturn, similarly tweaked. Hell, I was just pleased that it was Saturn shaped.