David Strange

NGC 5394 - The Heron Galaxy also known as Arp 84. Imaged with RC10 & ASI533MC

NGC 4631 The Whale Galaxy 20th March - discovered on this night 239 years ago by William Herschel. 30 million light years distant.

40 mins on M104 the Sombrero Galaxy last night with RC10 and ASI533 + L-Pro filter

One of the finest barred spiral galaxies in the sky! M109 in UMaj imaged with RC10 last night 30x120s

Clear skies for more #SmartEye viewing last night @NLOastronomy with 50cm in Connaught Dome. NGC 4561, M51, M66, NGC2403

M65 is a spiral galaxy in Leo about 35 million light years distant. 20 x 120s with RC10 & ASI533MC taken tonight.

@NigelSommelier I wouldn’t specifically use it for imaging as I use my power supply which runs my ASIair. It’s really designed to help you see galaxies/nebulae more easily.

@dgs99 Very nice image. I currently use a SeestarS50 for my astrophotography. I've heard the Smarteye is easy to use but power heavy, any comments on this? Was considering getting one for my reflector scopes. 🙂🔭

Here’s M100 seen with a stack of 19 x10s. It also has its own WiFi so images can be shared on mobile phones in real time. This is so impressive for outreach astronomy and just opens up another dimension to “observing” the universe! #PegasusSmarteye Wow!

Firstlight with a Pegasus Smart-eye electronic eyepiece on the 20” Newtonian in the Connaught Dome @NLOastronomy M101 spiral galaxy seen in all its glory after a few 10s shots.

Spots have now reappeared on the Sun with many prominences around the limb. Solarscope 70mm imaged this afternoon.

Another attempt at imaging the bridge! This time with a little more success! 24 x 120s RC10. The “bridge” associated with Halton Arp and NGC 4319 refers to a controversial luminous filament or stream of material that Arp claimed connected the spiral galaxy NGC 4319 (redshift z ≈ 0.005, relatively nearby at ~80 million light-years) to the quasar Markarian 205 (Mrk 205, much higher redshift z ≈ 0.07, implying ~1 billion light-years distant if cosmological).

Some nice proms on the Sun today.

In early February 2026, the Sun unleashed a torrent of back-to-back solar flares. One specific active region on the Sun was responsible for over 50 of them! Here’s a close up from NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory.👇 🤩

The first confirmed example of a gravitational lens which was discovered in 1979. What appears to be two very similar bright points of light are actually two images of the same distant quasar. The light from the quasar (z= 1.413) is bent by a foreground galaxy YGKOW G1  (z=0.355). The quasars light is bent around two different paths which results in images separated by 6 arc seconds.

Comet 29P Schwassmann-Wachmann in outburst, showing expanding coma

Caught the double shadow transit of Europa & Callisto tonight.

Today's Sun showing active sunspot AR 4366

Aristarchus, Herodotus & Schroter’s Valley RC10 + 3x Barlow

@AnthonyJCook2 Thanks an RC-10 + 2x Telenegative Uranus-C

@dgs99 That's stunning! What diameter scope are you using?

With a favourable libration last night I caught Shackleton crater at the lunar South Pole.