The view to the south is looking within the plane of our Milky Way Galaxy where bright gaseous nebulae are the birthplace for new stars. The Milky Way is a barred spiral galaxy with a diameter of about 87,000 light-years, but with spiral arms only about 1,000 light-years thick. Our Sun, which is only one of the estimated 100 to 400 billion stars in the Milky Way, is located about 27,000 light-years from the galactic center.

This is my favorite region of the sky for photographing nebulae. Sagittarius is located in the direction of the Milky Way galactic center, and is therefore rich with nebulae and star clusters. The bright globular cluster, M5, located in Serpens, and is one of the oldest globular clusters in our Milky Way Galaxy. There are several bright globular clusters in the southern region of Sagittarius, including M22 and M55. Annotations show the locations of my astrophotos.

The constellation of Ophiuchus contains six bright globular clusters, and I have photographed three of them. The star rho Ophiuchi is surrounded by a "U-shaped" reflection nebula, and is located near the bright star Antares (in Scorpius). The rho Ophiuchi region is one of the most colorful areas in our sky, but unfortunately never gets very high above the horizon when viewed from mid-northern latitudes, making it difficult to capture good photos. Annotations show the locations of my astrophotos.

Near the zenith, I have photographed three globular clusters (M13, M71 and M3), as well as two planetary nebulae: Ring (M57) and Dumbbell (M27). M13 is known as the Great Globular Cluster in the constellation of Hercules because of its apparent size and brightness. Spiral galaxy NGC 6207 is seen close and to the left to M13.

The wide field of view of the Dumbbell Nebula contains multiple small star clusters, the M71 globular cluster, and NGC 6820, a small reflection nebula near the open cluster NGC 6823 in the constellation of Vulpecula. Annotations show the locations of my astrophotos.

The view to the north also shows the plane of our Milky Way Galaxy, and DSOs near the celestial pole (Polaris) come into view. At my latitude for astrophotography, Polaris is located 38 degrees above the horizon. All of the DSOs within a circle of 38 degrees from Polaris will be visible all year long, but many of them will be too close to the horizon to be easily seen through the dense atmosphere.

The North American Nebula (NGC 7000), named for its shape, is the focal pont of this region. The Pelican Nebula (IC 5070) is nearby, and the extensive Gamma Cygni Nebula (IC 1318) and the Elephant Trunk Nebula (IC 1396) combine with the North American Nebula to form a dramatic view of this portion of the Milky Way. Closer to the horizon, you can see the Heart and Soul Nebulae (IC 1805 and IC 1848), with nearby double open star cluster h & chi Persei (NGC 869 & NGC 884). The h & chi Persei double cluster was the subject of my first ever astrophoto (1968).

The Tulip Nebula (Sh2-101) is located in the Cygnus star cluster and nearby is Cygnus X-1; a binary star system that is a strong source of X-rays and the first cosmic object ever identified as containing a black hole.. Annotations show the locations of my astrophotos.

The Veil Nebula is a large supernova remnant located about 2,400 light-years away in the constellation of Cygnus. The source supernova was a star 20 times more massive than the Sun that exploded between 10,000 and 20,000 years ago, and would have been so bright that it was visible in the daytime. The remnants have since expanded to a size about 6 times the diameter of the full Moon. This nebula has three major components: the Western Veil, Pickering s Triangle, and the Eastern Veil.

The region around Polaris is rich with galaxies. Andromeda Galaxy (M31), and its companion galaxies M32 and M110, are near the horizon at midnight, and do not rise into good view until the wee hours of the morning.

Supernovae are powerful explosions of stars when their internal nuclear fuel supplies burn out and the stars quickly collapse, resulting in massive shock waves causing stars to explode.

Supernova 2023ixf was first observed on 19 May 2023 in the Pinwheel Galaxy (M101), and by 22 May 2023, SN 2023ixf had brightened to about magnitude 11.The supernova started to fade around 10 June 2023. SN 2023ixf is not visible in the 6 April 2024 image.

The Gravitational-wave Optical Transient Observer (GOTO), an array of robotic optical telescopes, discovered a supernova (SN 2025rbs) in the NGC 7331 galaxy located in the constellation of Pegasus on July 14, 2025.

I requested that sub-images be collected for me at the Mark Slade Remote Observatory with the 714mm telescope on July 28, 2025. With this telescope, the field of view is wide enough to capture not only the NGC 7331 and surrounding smaller galaxies, but also a smaller cluster of galaxies known as Stephan s Quintet.

Because this supernova is so close to the bright galactic center, I needed to do High Dynamic Range processing to separate the supernova from the galactic center. On the same night, a member of the Rappahannock Astronomy Club (Wade Allen) also collected images of this supernova. His processing brought out some detail that was not in mine, and my image had details not seen in his image. With his permission, I processed both images together for a final and better image.

On September 1, 2026 another super nova (SN2026aaiv) was discovered in the NGC 7331 galaxy. By this time, the 2025 supernova had faded from view.