Group photo

Everybody smile!

Kevin Drum: 

This is the Flaming Star Nebula, aka IC 405, a combination emission/reflection nebula in the Auriga constellation.

I took this picture Sunday night after a multi-month layoff, and it was the best night of astrophotography I've ever had. Usually something goes wrong during the imaging session—it's always weird and different each time—but the sky was perfect on Sunday and everything went great. 

I set up the scope with no trouble, pressed Go, and it took pictures steadily for the next eight hours with no complaints. 

In the end, I got more than 100 subs of four minutes each, partly because it was a long winter night and partly because everything went so smoothly. This is by far my most productive session ever....

Rob's comment:

Like all pictures of the cosmos, it looks like a flaming nothingness, which, I suppose, is a form of cosmic realism. Not that there's nothing there but that there's nothing human, except the fact of the picture itself.

Later: I should add that whatever of human interest is there is so far away that we'll never know about it.