NGC 4565 Messier 109 Whirlpool Galaxy Sunflower Galaxy

Spring Galaxies

Spring-time galaxies as imaged by UNH instructor, John S. Gianforte

Saturn 09

Saturn in 2009

Saturn returned to opposition on March 8th 2009. Here are some images of the gas giant taken by UNH Instructor, John S. Gianforte. Notice that the angle of inclination of Saturn's rings with respect to our viewing location are nearly on axis. This allows us here on Earth to see most of Saturn's body, which is mostly occulted by the rings themselves.

Lunar Eclipse

Lunar Eclipse

On the night of Wednesday, February 20th 2008, the UNH observatory was treated to a lunar eclipse accompanied by cold, clear skies and over 100 observers.

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Asteroid 2007 TU24

Asteroid 2007 TU24 passed by the Earth on the early morning of Tuesday, January 29th 2008 at a distance of 1.4 lunar distance (~560,000km).

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Comet 17P Holmes

This comet surprised astronomers around the world when it had an outburst on October 24th. The comet brightened from 17th magnitude (invisible to the naked eye) up to 2.8 magnitude (brightness of typical stars!) - this is a factor of several hundred thousand in brightness!

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Deep Sky Objects

On the clear and cold night of December 8/9th 2007, John Gianforte, Trevor Leonard, and Richard Woolf captured these images through the UNH C14 with a Canon 20Da DSLR camera at f/11, 30 second exposure.

Saturn

Images of Planets

Here are a few images of Saturn and Jupiter taken during 2007.

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The Moon

These images were taken by John Gianforte in in February and March of 2007

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Transit of Mercury

These images are of a transit of Mercury that occurred Wednesday, November 8th, 2006.

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Supernova in M51b

Images of M51 taken on two different dates, April 10th, 2005 and July 13th, 2005. The one taken in July shows the cataclysmic explosion of a supermassive star. Both images were shot through an SBIG ST9 through a Celestron CM1100 at f/6.3. Each exposure was 45 seconds. All pictures were taken by John Gianforte.

McDonald Observatory McDonald Observatory Galactic Center Cat's Eye Big Dipper Aries

Images from the McDonald Observatory

Unfortunately, the Cats Eye Nebula seen through the 82inch Otto Struve Telescope was out of focus. I included one of the images taken of the Cats Eye, and a few others taken throughout the weekend anyways. Enjoy!