astrophotography by bill w

Jupiter reached opposition (directly opposite the sun) June 10th.  you can see it rising in the east after sunset.  It will get higher and h...

Despite being at solar minimum, a moderately large sunspot was well positioned mid April: AR 2738 4/14/19 WL AR 2738 4/14/19 Ha ...

Speaking of the Virgo supercluster, here's Markarian's chain, a photogenic string of galaxies in the Virgo cluster: Markarian...

Messier 87, the smoking gun, is a super giant galaxy--over a trillion  stars--in the constellation Virgo.  M 87 lies  55 million light years...

Captured a few solar prominence images  between clouds  this weekend with a hydrogen alpha scope .  I typically process these as black and w...

Why the 10/7/2018 falcon 9 launch was special: 1. it was launched from vandenberg airbase aiming south over the ocean so it could be seen...

the magnetic activity of the sun has an 11 year cycle: at its peak, there are frequent sunspots, flares, etc.  while at minimum, not much i...