The people I’ve met who are more than armchair astronomers fall into two categories: observers and astrophotographers. The latter combine a passion for astronomy with photography to make dazzling images of distant objects in the night sky. Adam Block is one of the best of them, and people are starting to notice. Recently, the Santa Barbara Instrument Group awarded Block its Award for Excellence in Astronomical Imaging and named him to its astrophotography...

I spent Day 2 at the Pacific Astronomy and Telescope Show (PATS) mostly talking. I talked to manufacturers about new products, I talked to amateur astronomers about our magazine , I chatted with astroimagers about their photography, and I interacted with some of the event's keynote speakers. Everyone thought Day 1 of PATS was a success. About 800 paid admission tickets sold, and people milled about through the whole day. Jen Winter, president...

As Astronomy ’s photo editor, I get some cool images pretty much on a daily basis. Monday, I opened my e-mail to find that one of the magazine’s long-time imagers, Keith Quattrocchi, in association with Matt Helm, has imaged a hitherto undesignated planetary nebula in the constellation Cygnus. And, it’s a cool one. Helm first discovered the object after imaging an HII region (a cloud of glowing hydrogen) only 48' from the Crescent Nebula (NGC...

You know, it’s not often that I get excited about a partial lunar eclipse. Yes, the “near-perfect” alignment is cool, but it doesn’t get all that dark, and I just find myself wishing the event was a total eclipse. Well, here’s an image I’m really jazzed about. It came to me (as Photo Editor) from one of our long-time imagers, Anthony Ayiomamitis, who lives in Athens, Greece. When I look at his image, I can almost feel the Moon moving through Earth...

Today is Friday, the second day of the 2008 Northeast Astro Imaging Conference (NEAIC) at Rockland Community College , in Suffern, New York. Because the college’s classes are still in session, NEAIC annually asks one of the participants to lecture to one or two classes about an astronomical subject. This year, conference organizers asked Astronomy Contributing Editor Mike D. Reynolds to give one of the lectures. And what a great choice it was! In...