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California Nebula—November 2008 Astrophotography is the practice of sitting in the cold, dark night freezing your butt off while you attempt to capture images of faintly glowing objects in the sky. Side effects include: empty wallet, sleeplessness, and uncontrollable drooling over optical equipment you can't afford. Welcome to CaliforniaStars.net Astronomy in California is strong, professionally and for amateurs. With events such as the RTMC Astronomy Expo, Nightfall, PATS, SCAE and organizations such as JPL, CalTech, the Mt. Wilson Institute, MWOA, RAS, SDAA, LAAS, and OCA, astronomy is especially active in southern California. For my part, I frequent various mountain and desert areas of southern California to try my hand at astrophotography—taking pictures of the night sky with star-tracking equipment, telescopes, and cameras. My degree of success varies from night to night. Most Recent Photos 12/31/08: New Year's Eve grouping of the Moon, Venus, Mercury, and Jupiter. 12/20/08: The Christmas Tree Cluster and Cone Nebula in Hα from Ontario. 11/01/08: The California Nebula on a bed of stars from this year's Nightfall. 09/27/08: A view of the Heart Nebula from Landers. 08/31/08: Light from the Soul Nebula reaches Mt. Piños. Please visit the Gallery for more photos of the stars—all taken from within California. Unauthorized reproduction of any images contained within this site is strictly prohibited. © 2005- www.californiastars.net. All rights reserved.		IYA 2009! The International Year of Astronomy has started! Do your part to learn about the universe or to teach others about it. Find out more at these IYA sponsor sites: AAS NASA ASP NOAO Astronomical League AAVSO National Science Foundation Presentation: Nightfall 08 Download my PowerPoint presentation, "DSLR Imaging Techniques" (WARNING: It's about 23 MB).