As noted in a previous post, next Wednesday (Feb. 22) evening Dr. Katherine Kornei and I will be speaking at the 510 Museum in Lake Oswego, OR (http://artscouncillo.org/events/).  I will show some of my astro-photos and talk about how I capture and process them, while Dr. Kornei will talk about science behind some of the objects in my photos.  We gave a similar presentation last year at a private club meeting, but this is the first time it will be available publicly.  One addition to the presentation is that Dr. Kornei will talk about some prominent women in astronomy, in keeping with the Lake Oswego Library program that initiated this talk and the corresponding exhibit.  I hope you will join us there at 7PM.

I also have a new astro-photo to share:

This is NGC1491, an emission nebula in the constellation Perseus.  I had been planning to photograph this object for many months and finally got the opportunity when we had a couple of clear nights recently.  In truth, it was only partly clear, and I didn’t get nearly as much data as I wanted (or normally get).  The finished image is a bit noisy and not very sharp, so I won’t be making any prints of it, but it is good enough for web viewing.

What I find interesting about this image is that in the bright blue center there seems to be a hand (outlined in white) gesturing us to come in.  Probably not a good idea for fragile, Earth-bound creatures like us!