Quailway Cottage – The Amazing Sky

January 24, 2025January 25, 2025

Deep-Sky Hunting in the Other Galaxy Season

Amateur astronomers soon learn that spring is “galaxy season.” But so is autumn … if you know where to look.

Each season brings a different and rich set of targets to view through telescopes. Summer and winter skies are dominated by the Milky Way and its assortment of glowing nebulas and sparkling star clusters, objects not far away within our Galaxy’s spiral arms.

We live in a galaxy that is a flattened disk — though, as shown in this artwork based on data from the European Space Agency’s recently concluded Gaia mission, that disk is warped.

In summer and winter, as viewed from our location halfway from the centre to the edge of our Galaxy, we look into its disk, to see our Galaxy as the “Milky Way,” the misty band across the night sky.

But in spring we look straight out of the disk, into intergalactic space filled with other distant galaxies. In northern hemisphere spring we look “up” in this illustration, out of the disk toward the North Galactic Pole, and the rich collections of galaxies in Coma Berenices, Leo, and Virgo.

In southern hemisphere spring — and from the southern hemisphere — we look “down” in the diagram, toward the assortment of galaxies around the South Galactic Pole, in and around the lesser-known constellations of Eridanus, Fornax and Sculptor.

A *SkySafari* chart showing some of the targets on the tour, low in the south from Arizona’s latitude in autumn.

But, as I show above, that area of sky is accessible from sites in the northern hemisphere, when it is autumn. (The marker for SGP is the South Galactic Pole.) As you can see, the galaxy-filled constellations lie low in the southern sky. It takes travelling to a site as far south as possible to see them well.

That’s what I did in October 2024, to a favourite spot just north of the Mexican border near Portal, Arizona (latitude 32º N). I blogged about that trip earlier.

Here I provide a tour of some of the deep-sky delights I shot on that trip, during autumn “galaxy season,” the other galaxy hunting time. All these galaxies are bright, rivalling the better-known northern targets in the popular 18th-century Messier Catalogue. But French astronomer Charles Messier never observed from this far south to see them. And yet, some of these targets are large and bright enough to be visible in binoculars, ranking them as “showpiece” objects.

NOTE: You can tap or click on all images to bring them up full screen.

Galaxies Galore!

NGC 55 in Sculptor

This is a stack of 16 x 4 minute exposures with the Askar APO120 refractor at f/5.6 (with its 0.8x Reducer) and the Canon Ra at ISO 1000.

This bright (8th magnitude) edge-on galaxy is big, almost 1/2º across (as wide as a Full Moon diameter — the field here is 2º by 3º). NGC 55 lies on the border of the obscure southern constellations Sculptor and Phoenix.

The galaxy was discovered by James Dunlop from Australia in 1826. It is one of the brightest members of the Sculptor Group of galaxies near the South Galactic Pole, though some consider it a member of our own Local Group of neighbour galaxies. It has an asymmetrical shape and is crossed by dark dust lanes. It is classed as a barred spiral, though that shape is hard to discern; we’ll see better examples later in the tour.

NGC 247, the Dusty Spiral in Cetus

This is a stack of 16 x 4 minute exposures with the Askar APO120 refractor at f/5.6 with its 0.8x Reducer, and the Canon Ra at ISO 800.

This is the bright (9th magnitude) and moderately large spiral galaxy NGC 247 in southern Cetus, the Whale. It is known as the Dusty Spiral and is #62 in Sir Patrick Moore’s Caldwell Catalogue of notable non-Messier objects.

It is also a member of the Sculptor Group of nearby galaxies close to our own Local Group that surrounds the Milky Way. A group of tiny and faint 14th to 16th magnitude “PGC” galaxies (from the Principal Galaxies Catalogue) called Burbidge’s Chain lies just above NGC 247.

NGC 253, the Silver Coin, with NGC 288, a Pairing in Sculptor

This is a stack of 20 x 3-minute exposures with the APO120 refractor with its 0.8x Reducer for 560mm focal length and f/5.6, and the Canon Ra at ISO 1600. No filter was employed.

Here, sitting right next to the South Galactic Pole, we get a two-for-one field. This is the pairing of the bright and large edge-on spiral galaxy NGC 253 (upper right) with the large and loose globular star cluster NGC 288 (lower left). The latter is easily resolved into its constituent stars.

The two are just 1.75 degrees apart in Sculptor, but are actually 12 million light years apart in space, with NGC 288 belonging to our Milky Way, while NGC 253 is another galaxy altogether, one of the brightest in the sky (at magnitude 7) and a member of the Sculptor Group.

NGC 253 is also known as the Silver Coin Galaxy, and is Caldwell 65 on Sir Patrick Moore’s list. However, it was discovered by Caroline Herschel in 1783, from England! Her brother William discovered nearby NGC 288.

NGC 300, the Sculptor Pinwheel

This is a stack of 16 x 4 minute exposures with the APO120 refractor at f/5.6 with its 0.8x Reducer, and the Canon Ra at ISO 800.

This is the bright (8th magnitude) and moderately large (1/2º across) spiral galaxy NGC 300, aka the Sculptor Pinwheel. It’s the southern equivalent of the popular Messier 33 spiral in Triangulum. NGC 300 is also Caldwell 70.

It, too, was discovered in 1826 by James Dunlop. NGC 300 may be a member of the Sculptor Group. Or it might lie closer to us than the Sculptor Group, along with NGC 55, at “only” 6.5 million light years away.

NGC 1097, a Barred Spiral in Fornax

This is a stack of 10 x 6 minute exposures with the APO120 refractor at f/7, with the Canon Ra at ISO 1600.

We trek farther east into the next constellation over from Sculptor, to Fornax the Furnace, to find NGC 1097. This is the realm of bright (magnitude 9.5 in this case) barred spiral galaxies. This class of galaxy has arms emanating from a long bar at the core. This area of sky is replete with bright barred spirals, far more so than any area we find “up north.”

NGC 1097 is also classified as a Seyfert galaxy, a type with an active quasar-like nucleus, housing a massive black hole. NGC 1097 is also Caldwell 67. Just on its northern edge sits the little companion galaxy NGC 1097A.

NGC 1316 in Fornax, also with a Black Hole

This is a stack of 15 x 4 minute exposures with the APO120 refractor at f/5.6 with its 0.8x Reducer, with the Canon Ra at ISO 800.

This bright (magnitude 8.5) elliptical galaxy is also catalogued by radio astronomers as Fornax A, because NGC 1316 is also a “bright” source of radio waves, thought to be generated by a supermassive black hole at its core.

Elliptical galaxies are notorious for being cannibal galaxies, eating others nearby. Sure enough, the galaxy is surrounded by faint tidal streams of stars, just recorded here, the result of collisions and mergers with unfortunate companions that wandered too close by. NGC 1316 is about 75 million light years away, and belongs to the Fornax 1 Galaxy Cluster. Despite its uniqueness and brightness, it is not in the Caldwell Catalogue.

Just above it is the smaller elliptical NGC 1318. At top is the trio of: the edge-on spiral NGC 1326A and companion NGC 1326B, and the barred spiral NGC 1326 with an odd ring shape.

NGC 1365 and NGC 1399, at the Heart of the Fornax Cluster

This is a stack of just 10 x 6 minute exposures through the APO120 refractor at f/7 and the Canon Ra at ISO 1600.

This frames the main members of the populous Fornax Galaxy Cluster, second only perhaps to the northern sky’s Coma-Virgo Galaxy Cluster, and its Markarian’s Chain area, for having the most bright galaxies in one low-power telescope field. (The field here is 1.6º by 2.4º.) It is a “must see” sight for galaxy fans.

The two brightest Fornax cluster members are:
– the giant elliptical galaxy NGC 1399 at upper left, paired with smaller NGC 1404,
– and the barred spiral galaxy NGC 1365 at lower right, considered one of the best barred spirals in the sky. There’s nothing quite like it up north. Like NGC 1399, it is 58 million light years away.

The odd shaped galaxy at left is the irregular galaxy NGC 1427A, with NGC 1427 itself at the far left edge. The elongated spiral galaxy at top is NGC 1380. Numerous other NGC and tiny, faint PGC galaxies populate the field, down to magnitude 15 or so.

Bonus Nebulas!

While autumn’s galaxy season has lots to offer the galaxy hunter, there are some wonderful nebulas down south as well. In my sampling, all are “planetaries.”

NGC 246, the Skull Nebula in Cetus

This is a stack of 16 x 4 minute exposures with the Askar APO120 refractor at f/5.6 with its 0.8x Reducer, with the Canon Ra at ISO 1600.

This is the nebula NGC 246, aka the Skull Nebula, in Cetus. It’s an example of a planetary nebula, so-called because this type of object with their small blue-green disks reminded William Herschel of the planet Uranus that he discovered in 1781. NGC 246 was discovered by Herschel four years later in 1785.

NGC 246 has a mottled disk, giving it its fanciful name, and a 12th magnitude central star that has ejected the nebula as part of its end-of-life eruptions, the origin of all planetaries. They have nothing to do with planet formation; they are the products of star death.

NGC 246 lies about 1,600 light years away. Just above it is the small galaxy NGC 255.

NGC 1360, the Robin’s Egg Nebula in Fornax

This is a stack of 10 x 6 minute exposures with the Askar APO120 refractor at f/7 and with the Canon Ra at ISO 1600.

This, too, is a planetary nebula, but an odd one, in that it is a more uniform disk than is usual for planetaries, lacking the ring or bi-polar shape of most such objects. It was only recently classified as a planetary, one with an 11th magnitude central star responsible for expelling the nebula.

NGC 1360 is bright (at 9th magnitude), large, and blue-green, giving it the nickname the Robin’s Egg Nebula. The barred spiral galaxy (there are lot of them down here!) NGC 1398 is at lower left.

NGC 7293, the Helix Nebula in Aquarius

This is a blend of: a stack of 24 x 8 minute exposures with no filter, with a stack of 20 x 12 minute exposures with an IDAS NBX narrowband filter to isolate just the green Oxygen III and red Hydrogen alpha light. All through the APO120 at f/7, taken over 2 nights as the object was not well-placed long enough for all the images to be taken in one night. Shot using the Canon Ra, at ISO 3200 for the filtered frames and ISO 1600 for the unfiltered shots.

This is the large and bright (magnitude 7.6) planetary nebula catalogued as NGC 7293, but better known as the Helix Nebula, in Aquarius. But the internet has also dubbed in “The Eye of God.”

While this target lies farther north than most of the objects here, making it easy to see from northern latitudes, William Herschel working in England missed it. His telescopes were too powerful! It wasn’t discovered until 1824 (or thereabouts) by Karl Ludwig Harding in Germany. It is #63 in the Caldwell Catalogue.

NGC 7293 is thought to be one of the closest planetary nebulas to us, at only 650 light years away, thus its large size, nearly 1/4º across, half the size of the Moon’s disk. There’s an outer halo that is twice that size, but only the brightest portion of it is recorded here as a partial arc. It takes exposures of many hours, and more patience than I have, to pick up this nebula’s full extent.

The bright star at left is 5th magnitude star Upsilon Aquarii, which I composed to be in the frame and not on the edge if the Helix had been centered.

About the Images

As per the tech details in the captions, I shot all the images from southern Arizona during a wonderful marathon of astrophotography in October 2024, at the Quailway Cottage, a favorite spot of mine for an astronomy retreat.

I used an Askar APO120 refractor, at either its native f/7 for a focal length of 840mm, or with its 0.8x Reducer lens for a faster f/5.6 focal ratio and shorter 670mm focal length, yielding a wider field and shorter exposure times for each “sub-frame.” Most images have a similar “plate scale,” so the difference in object size is due to their actual size on the sky.

The camera was the astro-modified 30-megapixel Canon Ra. The mount was the venerable Astro-Physics AP400, which returned earlier in 2024 from its 20-year stay in Australia. I used the Lacerta MGEN3 stand-alone auto-guider, for app- and computer-free guiding which I prefer. The MGEN3 performs “dithering,” shifting the framing by a few pixels between each exposure, to aid elimination of thermal noise when stacking images.

While it looks impressive, the telescope is still not the best for small, detailed targets like the galaxies and planetaries here. They demand even more focal length (= bigger and heavier telescopes) than I prefer to shoot with.

Even so, I plan to take the same rig to New Mexico this year in May to shoot targets in the “other half of the sky,” during spring galaxy season.

— Alan, January 24, 2025 / AmazingSky.com

December 9, 2024December 20, 2024

The Great Comet Chase of 2024

A plan to shoot the promised bright comet of 2024 paid off, with fine views at dawn and at dusk of the best comet since 2020.

Comets are always a gamble. Any new comets discovered, the ones that usually become the brightest, have no track record of performance. Predictions of how bright a new comet might appear are based on what a typical comet should do. But comets can outperform expectations and dazzle us, or they can fizzle and fade away.

In late 2023 it was clear that a then newly-discovered comet, C/2023 A3, named Tsuchinshan-ATLAS after the observatories where it was co-discovered, had the potential to perform in late 2024.

The low angle and position of the comet from home in Canada in the late September dawn sky, simulated in StarryNight software.

Knowing where it would be in the sky (that trait of a comet can be predicted with accuracy!) I planned a field trip to the U.S. desert Southwest for late September and early October 2024. From farther south the comet would be higher than it would be from home (shown above), and over spectacular landscapes.

I had visions of another Comet NEOWISE from July 2020. As my blog from 2020 shows, we saw that photogenic comet well from our northern latitude in Canada, as it skimmed across the northern horizon. Tsuchinshan-ATLAS would require a chase south.

September 26 & 27 — at Bryce Canyon, Utah

In late September 2024 the comet would be inbound, approaching the Sun and in the morning sky. What better eastern scene than overlooking Bryce Canyon in Utah, where I had been a year before, for the October 14, 2023 annular eclipse of the Sun in the morning sky. (Click the link for my eclipse chase blog.)

I was fortunate to get two clear mornings, both from the Fairyland Canyon viewpoint, just a short walk from the parking lot to carry camera gear and tracking mounts.

Comet C/2023 A3, Tsuchinshan-ATLAS, at dawn over Bryce Canyon, on the morning of September 27, 2024.

My first look at the comet on September 27 was on the day the comet was at perihelion, closest to the Sun in its orbit, though not in the sky at our viewing angle from Earth.

The comet was just visible to the unaided eye, but was obvious on the camera view screen, even amid the bright twilight. I had to shoot fast as the window between “comet rise” and the sky brightening too much was only a few minutes long.

Comet C/2023 A3, Tsuchinshan-ATLAS, rising in the twilight over Bryce Canyon, on September 28, 2024.

Knowing better what to look for, I caught the comet a little sooner the next morning on September 28, and so the tail appeared longer and more impressive as it rose above the distant mountains. A group of other local photographers arrived just a few minutes too late both mornings, and so struggled to just sight the comet, let alone photograph it.

This vertical panorama takes in the nebula-rich northern winter Milky Way over the formations of Bryce Canyon National Park, from the Fairyland Canyon viewpoint.

But I had arrived extra early, to shoot a vertical panorama (above) of the winter Milky Way over the canyon formations below. This and the comet images were shot with the aid of a sky tracker to follow the stars, but with the tracker off for separate shots of the ground.

So I had bagged the comet at Bryce! On to the next stop.

September 28 & 29 — at Monument Valley, Utah

There’s no more iconic or famous landscape in the American West than the buttes of Monument Valley, on the Navaho Tribal Lands on the Arizona/Utah border.

This panorama from the Navaho Tribal Park at Monument Valley shows the evening twilight sky looking east opposite the sunset to the rising dark blue arc of Earth’s shadow cast on the atmosphere. The shadow is rimmed with a pink “Belt of Venus” tint from sunlight still hitting the upper atmosphere.

A clear first evening provided a fabulous view of the arc of Earth’s shadow across the eastern sky from the viewpoint near the aptly named The View Hotel.

This is a panorama of the sunrise scene at the Navaho Tribal Park, Monument Valley, Arizona, taken just after sunrise with the low Sun lighting the iconic buttes and mesas of the Valley. The West and East Mittens are at left; the Sun was behind Merrick Butte at centre, and lighting Mitchell Mesa at right.

A wonderful sunrise on my second morning there made for a spectacular panorama. But while clouds created fine sunrise lighting, they aren’t conducive to seeing comets!

Comet C/2023 A3, Tsuchinshan-ATLAS (at centre), is rising in the dawn twilight over Monument Valley, Arizona on the morning of September 30, 2024. The comet is rising just south (right) of Merrick Butte.

A band of clear sky near the horizon allowed me to catch the comet rising to the right of Merrick Butte, as seen from a spot south of The View from where I had calculated the comet would rise in the right position. From the usual Valley viewpoint farther north the comet would have been behind the butte.

While the planning worked, the result was not quite the spectacle I had envisioned. The comet was nice, but was starting to become lost in the bright sky as it descended toward the Sun.

There were only a couple of mornings left to catch the comet at dawn before it disappeared completely into the daytime sky close to the Sun.

October 1 to 11 — at Quailway Cottage, Arizona

The major block of time in my trip was booked for an astrophoto retreat at a cottage I’d rented twice before but not since late 2017. The Quailway Cottage, popular among birders, is also ideal for stargazing as it is in one of the darkest areas of the Southwest, north of Douglas, Arizona, and just across the Arizona/New Mexico border.

This captures both the glow of Zodiacal Light in the eastern dawn sky (the band of light extending up across the frame) and the dust tail of Comet Tsuchinshan-ATLAS rising from behind the Pelloncillo mountains, at dawn on October 2, 2024.

When I arrived the comet was putting in its last show in the dawn sky. In fact, on October 2 I managed to capture a dawn scene with the morning Zodiacal Light created by sunlight reflecting off cometary dust in the inner solar system, and just the tail of the comet rising before the bright comet head appeared.

Comet C/2023 A3, Tsuchinshan-ATLAS, is rising in the dawn twilight over the Pelloncillo Mountains in New Mexico, on October 2, 2024.

An image taken a little later showed the entire comet, now sporting a more impressive tail. It was blossoming into a fine comet indeed. But we were about to lose sight of it for more than a week.

Arizona Deep-Sky Imaging

While at Quailway I had clear skies every night. And so, as planned, I went to town shooting all kinds of “deep-sky” objects and fields with two astrophoto rigs I had brought with me: a longer-focal length 120mm refractor for small targets, and a short-focal length refractor for wide fields in the Milky Way. I had reviewed both new telescopes in recent months.

The Askar APO120 on a veteran Astro-Physics AP400 mount.

I concentrated on shooting targets low in the south that are impossible to get from home in Canada, and that I’ve missed shooting, or have not shot well, during my visits to Australia. See my blog here about my latest trek Down Under.

The two brightest Fornax cluster members are the elliptical galaxy NGC 1399 at upper left, paired with smaller NGC 1404, and the galaxy NGC 1365 at lower right, considered one of the best barred spirals in the sky.

Here’s an example, above, with the larger Askar 120APO: a field of galaxies in the constellation of Fornax that rivals the better-known Markarian’s Chain of galaxies in Coma Berenices in the northern spring sky.

This frames the spectacular region of the Milky Way near the direction of the galactic centre in Sagittarius.

And here’s a field (above) with the small Founder Optics Draco 62mm scope, framing the rich Sagittarius Starcloud punctuated with the small dark Ink Spot Nebula, all below the bright Lagoon and Trifid Nebulas.

This panorama extends for about 240º along the northern half of the Milky Way, from Orion at left, to Sagittarius at right, and centered on the Galactic Equator.

In autumn the Milky Way is up all night. So I used a simple star tracker, the MSM Nomad reviewed here on my blog, and a 28-70mm lens at 35mm to shoot a panorama from dusk to dawn along the Milky Way — from the summer stars of Sagittarius and Cygnus (at right, above), through the autumn constellations overhead in Cassiopeia and Perseus (at centre), and down into the pre-dawn sky with the winter stars in and around Orion (at left).

A Bonus Aurora from Arizona

I was just north of the Mexican border, at a latitude 32° North, more than 20° farther south than at home in Alberta. But what should appear in my sky but … aurora!

A selfie of me observing the great red aurora of October 10, 2024, from southern Arizona.

On October 9, and then again more so on October 10, a great solar storm brought Northern Lights down to me. And indeed across all of Canada and the U.S. The result for me was a red glow to the north — the tops of distant auroral curtains I would have seen filling my sky at home.

A time-lapse of an Arizona aurora, using a 15mm wide-angle lens shooting nearly 400 forty-second exposures. View it in-line here. Enlarge to a full screen view. There is no sound.

Above is a time-lapse video of the aurora that night, from a camera aimed due north for four hours. The red curtains come and go through the night.

This is a 360° panorama covering the entire sky and extending up to the zenith at centre, capturing a rare SAR arc across the Arizona sky in the pre-dawn hours of October 11, 2024.

The remarkable feature that night, October 10/11, was not the aurora, but what is called a SAR (Stable Auroral Red) arc that persisted all night. It appeared as a diffuse red band across the sky, created by heat energy leaking into the upper atmosphere during the solar storm. SAR arcs can accompany an aurora but are not auroras themselves.

This panorama takes in a rare confluence of skyglows in a colourful dawn sky.

By dawn the next morning, now October 11, the tall Zodiacal Light was prominent alongside the magenta SAR arc to the north (left) and the winter Milky Way to the south (right). There’s even a short pillar of light that might be an aurora fragment, or the tail of the comet!

The Comet Returns

However, toward the end of my 11-night marathon of deep-sky imaging, the bright head of the comet was to be rising into the evening sky for Part 2 of its apparition. Below is a shot from the evening of October 11, my last at Quailway. Yes, there it was, just above the Chiricahua Mountains. But it was a blip, barely visible in binoculars and to the camera. I had hoped for more.

This is Comet Tsuchinshan-ATLAS (C/2023 A3) at far right, barely visible emerging into the evening sky and low in the twilight, on October 11, 2024. This view includes Venus at left. Venus was obvious; the comet was not!

With the Moon now waxing into the evening sky, my plan was to head back north, stopping at scenic spots on the trip home, to catch the comet over moonlit landscapes to the west in the dusk sky.

My first two nights, October 12 and 13, at the VLA Radio Observatory near Socorro, New Mexico, then farther north near Canyon de Chelly, Arizona, were both beset by clouds to the west. From images posted on-line, I knew the comet was improving. But it was eluding me.

October 14 & 15 — at Arches National Park, Utah

The next stop was Arches National Park in Utah, which I last visited in April 2015. The first night’s forecast for October 14 also looked to be cloudy. But October 15 was supposed to be clear. So I extended my stay by an extra night, thinking that might be my only chance.

As it turned out October 14 was fabulous (below). The comet was easily visible to the unaided eye as a classic comet in the west. I pointed it out to folks walking by at the Windows Arches area. And I could hear other people commenting on it. At last a comet! One that anyone could see — though it helped to be at a clear sky site like Arches.

Comet Tsuchinshan-ATLAS at its finest in the evening sky, two days after its closest approach to Earth, and with it sporting a 10º- to 15º-long dust tail, and a narrow anti-tail pointed toward the horizon.

By then the Moon was well advanced in age to a bright gibbous phase, so the sky was by no means dark. It was deep blue in photos.

Still the comet showed up brilliantly; it had blossomed a lot in a couple of nights. Above, I framed it beside moonlit Turret Arch.

Below is a scene from the next night, October 15, my “back-up” night. The comet was certainly performing well after all. Even in the moonlight. In binoculars the tail stretched for the same length as the camera recorded it, some 15°.

This is a telephoto close-up Comet Tsuchinshan-ATLAS over the red rocks of Arches National Park, Utah, on a superb moonlit night, October 15, 2024.

Indeed, that was my last view of the comet for a while, as clouds prevented any more shooting on the rest of my journey north through Idaho and Montana. I even hit a snowstorm in southern Montana.

Late October — Back at Home in Alberta

But the comet was not done yet! Through October, while it receded from us in distance, it climbed higher into our sky, placing it into a dark sky with the Moon now out of the way.

This is Comet Tsuchinshan-ATLAS in a wide-angle nightscape scene over the Badlands of Dinosaur Provincial Park, Alberta, on October 23, 2024.

On October 23, a short trip out to Dinosaur Provincial Park east of home allowed me to shoot the comet over the Alberta Badlands landscape, beside the setting summer Milky Way.

This is a telephoto lens framing of Comet Tsuchinshan-ATLAS in Ophiuchus on the night of October 30, 2024 near several large star clusters. The field of view is 15º by 10º so the tail extends for about 6º to 8º.

By a week later, on October 30, the comet had diminished in size and brightness, but still looked like a classic comet, here framed in a telephoto close-up as it passed near some bright star clusters. This was from my front yard. The chase was over.

Clouds and a trip to Norway starting November 4 prevented more opportunities to shoot the comet. (My travel schedule also kept me from writing this blog until now!)

It had been a good chase over a month, yielding images I was happy with. The photos from Utah and Arizona I could not have taken at home, even if the skies had been clear during the comet’s prime-time. (They weren’t!) And it was great to finally get back to my favourite haunts in southern Arizona and New Mexico after an absence of seven years.

In all, Comet Tsuchinshan-ATLAS provided a fine finale to what has been a superb year of stargazing events and celestial sights.

— Alan, December 9, 2024 — AmazingSky.com