54 ASTRONOMY t FEBRUARY 2014
In 2007, I saw an image of the Iris Neb-
ula (NGC 7023) that showed the beautiful
object in detail. Instead of being awed by
the blue of starlight ref lecting off dust,
though, I was struck by what seemed to be
brown-red nebulosity at the far corners of
the image. It was interstellar dust! Always
up for a challenge, I began wondering if I
could create pictures of this dust. How well
could I record it with my wide FOV setup?
The only way to find out was to try it. As
the data from NGC 7023 began to come in
that first night, I could already tell the dust
was significant. After processing, the final
image showed even more than I could have
imagined and more than I’d seen in photo-
graphs from other observers. Excited at my
discovery, I decided to shoot another nearby
nebula, van den Bergh (vdB) 152. The data
again showed clouds of dust not visible in
previously published images. These two
successes ignited my passion for pursuing
less frequently imaged objects, particularly
dusty, dark, and ref lection nebulae.
Since then, I have been systematically
imaging these mysterious objects in an
attempt to make the astronomy world
more aware of them. In 2008–2010, I hadthe opportunity to continue that work in
the Southern Hemisphere. I shared an
observatory in Australia with famed nar-
rowband imager John Gleason. There, I
photographed many of the southern skies’
hidden dusty gems to add to the list of
northern objects I was imaging from my
home in Idaho.Personal projects
With my personal observatory, I increased
my productivity by using two separate
setups at the same time. The first is a
narrow FOV, high-resolution telescopeBBWo56 in the constellation Puppis has components of both emission and re-
flection nebulosity. Nearly 15 hours of exposure were necessary to create this
view of the extremely faint and rarely imaged object. (6-inch Astro-Physics
155 EDF refractor at f/5.4, 14.8 hours of HαLRGB exposure through an FLI
ProLine 16803 CCD camera)
(^) The elongated shape of Cometary Globule 12
suggests that star formation is active within this
region, on which the author focused for 9.5 hours
to make this image. (6-inch Astro-Physics 155 EDF
refractor at f/5.4, 9.5 hours of exposure through an
FLI ProLine 16803 CCD camera)
(^) The Orion Nebula (M42), a great star-forming
region of the Milky Way, is one of the objects that
inspired the author to start capturing images of the
universe. (6-inch Astro-Physics 155 EDF refractor at
f/5.4, 8 hours of exposure through an FLI ProLine
16803 CCD camera)
This colorful region of the southern constellation Scorpius is home to many
emission, reflection, and dark nebulae. In this image, the author shows the
blue reflection nebula IC 4605 adjacent to a small portion of the large yellow
reflection nebula IC 4606. (6-inch Astro-Physics 155 EDF refractor at f/5.4, 7
hours of exposure through an FLI ProLine 16803 CCD camera)