iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

rick-wayne.bsky.social @rick-wayne.bsky.social · 03/07/2026

I think the 30 hours of driving (and charging) to and from Nebraska may just have been worth it. Still would like better star color, but otherwise, Imma stick a fork. NGC 3718, 10.6 hours of LRGB with an 8" Richey-Chretien astrograph. 3 nights in WI, 3 in NE. #redwolfastro #astrophotography

The "peculiar" gravitationally-distorted galaxy NGC 3718 and some of its friends.

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rick-wayne.bsky.social @rick-wayne.bsky.social · 30/06/2026

Okay okay okay I realize now that I mislabeled a mountain range yesterday. My apologies!

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rick-wayne.bsky.social @rick-wayne.bsky.social · 30/06/2026

The full illuminated face of the Moon at the first quarter. Taken immediately prior to the close-up on June 22. A little softer than the previous image, I don't think I had the focus quite nailed for this one. #redwolfastro #astrophotography

Almost all of the Moon's illuminated face at first quarter.

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rick-wayne.bsky.social @rick-wayne.bsky.social · 30/06/2026

Yeah, got a bit of a processing backlog, here! Next up: The Moon, taken with a 10" imaging Newtonian and an IMX585 camera. Super good seeing, I used 50% of the video frames and probably could have thrown in more. #redwolfastro #astrophotography

Surface of the moon at first quarter, with the terminator throwing topography into sharp relief. Near Cassini Crater.

Annotated version of the lunar image, showing mares, mountain ranges, craters, and the Apollo 15 landing site.

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rick-wayne.bsky.social @rick-wayne.bsky.social · 28/06/2026

2nd camping trip to Merritt Reservoir, NE. AMAZING dark skies. Almost ran out of charge in the Bolt, got it hung up at the edge of the camp road, got stonkered on a single beer, had a mouse stow away on the return trip. Also, this. 15x240", 14mm, Pentax AstroTracer. #redwolfastro #astrophotography

The Milky Way core as seen from Merritt Park Reservoir Snake River Campground in western Nebraska. 14 June 2026.

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rick-wayne.bsky.social @rick-wayne.bsky.social · 29/05/2026

Work in progress -- < 3 hours on NGC 3718. So many sat trails that statistical elimination...couldn't. Well, much more time needed. 8" Richey-Chrétien astrograph, LRGB filters, heavily cropped from original APS-C frame. Finally got that little booger collimated! #redwolfastro #astrophotography

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rick-wayne.bsky.social @rick-wayne.bsky.social · 04/05/2026

@jefftiedrich.bsky.social : Posting pictures of your beautiful late wife is hard on you, but: thank you. I hope that it helps to know that so many of us who didn't know her can still appreciate her, and share a tiny bit of your grief. To a greater or lesser degree, we're all in this together, right?

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rick-wayne.bsky.social @rick-wayne.bsky.social · 29/04/2026

And some Moon shots! I find that selecting a field of view is a real challenge, there's always some cool crater or rill or mountain that I want to jam in. Gotta remember to be selective! #redwolfastro #astrophotography

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rick-wayne.bsky.social @rick-wayne.bsky.social · 29/04/2026

My friend made his 14" Celestron available to me. I've been working on my planetary and lunar skills. #redwolfastro #astrophotography

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Reposted by @rick-wayne.bsky.social

GOLIKEHELLMACHINE @golikehellmachine.com · 04/03/2026

during covid when we were all trying to find new hobbies, i tried to pick up paper cutting. i was not very good at it, but i did enough of it to understand how stunning this is

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rick-wayne.bsky.social @rick-wayne.bsky.social · 04/03/2026

Our long Madison nightmare of clouds finally over? NGC 2174, the Monkey Head Nebula (for the record, I don't see it), about four hours each of hydrogen, sulfur, and oxygen emission wavelengths. Shot from my urban back yard with my gorgeous 5-inch refractor. #redwolfastro #astrophotography

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Reposted by @rick-wayne.bsky.social

utopia deferred @utopia-defer.red · 18/10/2025

when i say that i yelped in shock at this kid’s sign

A young boy holds a sign that simply states in plain handwriting: Trump hit on my girlfriend

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rick-wayne.bsky.social @rick-wayne.bsky.social · 19/10/2025

I will have a ton of #NoKings pics from Madison, but for now here's just one, which may be my favorite. Funny, gentle, peaceful, but perfectly captures the contempt we have for people who would make peasants of American citizens.

A dog at the No Kings protest in Madison, WI wearing a sign:
I GO #2 ON #47

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rick-wayne.bsky.social @rick-wayne.bsky.social · 18/10/2025

Got our signs. I've got my photojournalist gear. NO KINGS! Maybe I'll send video of tens of thousands of people protesting peacefully to Kimmel's (hashtag)showusyourhellhole!

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rick-wayne.bsky.social @rick-wayne.bsky.social · 09/10/2025

BTW the Madison Astronomical Society's big community star party was a HUGE success. Thanks to the Monona Terrace Community and Convention Center for hosting Moon Over Monona Terrace again this year. 1300+ attendees! Free event, over a dozen telescopes, electronic astronomy, kid activities, talks.

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rick-wayne.bsky.social @rick-wayne.bsky.social · 09/10/2025

1st go at last night's data. Think I can do better. Best 40% of 18,000 frames, AutoStakkert2!, sharpened (maybe too much!) in WaveSharp. Acquired with SharpCap with a 12" Richey-Chrétien, 2.5X PowerMate, and Uranus-C camera. Will follow up if I manage better! #redwolfastro #astrophotography

Saturn with rings edge-on. Bit oversharpened.

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rick-wayne.bsky.social @rick-wayne.bsky.social · 08/10/2025

Some more data on this field -- it's really shaping up! I like this orientation better. Also, I just noticed the "hobbit door" toroid in the lower left. What's up with that? Star Rucba, reflection neb VDB 134, and "bubble" planetary PK86+5.1. #redwolfastro #astrophotography

Hydrogen-alpha emission near the star Rucba (45 Cyg), with reflection nebulae (including VDB 134) and the bubble-shaped planetary nebula PK86+5.1. Stars are photometrically color-calibrated.

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rick-wayne.bsky.social @rick-wayne.bsky.social · 19/09/2025

My pal Bonnie just got a Photoline APO, my scope's little brother. Found an Astrobin pic of this field and suggested a two-scope collab. This is a quick 'n dirty of my first 2 nights' data, I think it's gonna be spectacular! Stars RGB, H-alpha is red. Note spherical planetary nebula PK86+5.1.

Centered on the star Ruchba, this work in progress will include reflection nebula vdb 134 (not visible yet), planetary nebula PK86+5.1 (small bubble at lower-center-right), and a bleep-ton of hydrogen.

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rick-wayne.bsky.social @rick-wayne.bsky.social · 03/09/2025

And ANOTHER one! One night's worth of Ha data with that gorgeous, reliable 130 APO. What a rock star! This is the hydrogen data (Crescent Nebula) with the stars removed, and cropped off-center to give the impression of motion. Very much in-progress. More soon. #redwolfastro #astrophotography

Black and white image of the Crescent Nebula imaged at the 656nm hydrogen-alpha wavelength, showing surrounding nebulosity.

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rick-wayne.bsky.social @rick-wayne.bsky.social · 02/09/2025

Finished this one just today: The Cygnus Wall portion of the North America Nebula. Liked the starless version so well I decided to keep it too. 4.5 hours NB, 1.5 RGB. PixInsight, then combined channels with Astro Pixel Processor's HSORGB preset. #redwolfastro #astrophotography

The Cygnus Wall in Ha, OIII, SII, and RGB.

The Cygnus Wall in Ha, OIII, SII, and RGB, with stars removed.

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rick-wayne.bsky.social @rick-wayne.bsky.social · 02/09/2025

The Dark Shark is another dim one that the 130 just casually brought to life. "No big". I kept stretching until I was amused by the result. 2 hours of LRGB. Love the eyeliner. Someone beat me to APOD with their Dark Shark, or else I would have submitted this. #redwolfastro #astrophotography

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rick-wayne.bsky.social @rick-wayne.bsky.social · 02/09/2025

The 130 APO continues to just keep cranking gorgeous data. Here's the Phantom of The Opera Mask, very dim but the 5" pulls it out. My own synthetic color for hydrogen, stars are catalog-calibrated. 4.5 hours of H-alpha, 1.5 of RGB for stars. #redwolfastro #astrophotography

The Phantom of The Opera Mask emission nebula

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rick-wayne.bsky.social @rick-wayne.bsky.social · 02/09/2025

Up next: Titan, with its shadow transiting Saturn. There are a handful of these transits, visible for a few weeks only every 15 years. 12" Richey-Chrétien with 2X Televue compressor, color planetary camera, couple hundred frames from several minutes of video. #redwolfastro #astrophotography

Saturn with its moon Titan, with the moon's shadow transiting the face of the planet

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rick-wayne.bsky.social @rick-wayne.bsky.social · 02/09/2025

Boy, I've gotten behind in my posting! This pair of interacting galaxies is one of the closest such to us, at 85M LY. The Cocoon Galaxy and its companion have passed by each other with stellar stream trailing between them. Uncooled color planetary cam and the 8" RC. #redwolfastro #astrophotography

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rick-wayne.bsky.social @rick-wayne.bsky.social · 29/07/2025

Here's the latest one-night wonder. From 40M LY away, NGC 7331 featuring supernova 2025rbs, here for a limited time! This imaging session was going great even with encroaching clouds till it started RAINING ON MY TELESCOPE. That was a charlie-foxtrot of car-stuffing. #redwolfastro #astrophotography

$Deer Lick galaxy group, with NGCC 7331 at left. Inset is a hydrogen-alpha image showing supernova 2025rbs. 130mm APO refractor, mono camera, about 3 hours of total imaging time.$

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rick-wayne.bsky.social @rick-wayne.bsky.social · 29/07/2025

Welp, several clear nights around the new moon and nothing is broken. I'm pretty amazed how productive the new scope and camera make me. Actually I've imaged a dozen targets so far in 2025, but quite a few just didn't pass the so-what test so I've actually finished and published half of that.

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rick-wayne.bsky.social @rick-wayne.bsky.social · 26/07/2025

New scope won't quite frame both Trifid and Lagoon. So here's M20 (Trifid) & M21 star cluster. Couldn't stop looking at the starless image so finish-processed that too. Neighbor's comment ruined it forever, though: "South end of a northbound baboon?" Dammit Sue! #redwolfastro #astrophotography

M20, the Trifid Nebula, red hydrogen emission and blue reflected starlight, with M21 star cluster at upper left.

M20, Trifid Nebula with stars removed from image (RC Astro StarXTerminator). Calibrated RGB image with red hydrogen emission and blue nebulosity by reflected starlight.

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rick-wayne.bsky.social @rick-wayne.bsky.social · 10/07/2025

Took the new 130mm APO refractor out for a good trot over several nights. The Eagle Nebula, H𝛼=R, SII=G, OIII=B. About 5 hours total. Really quite taken with how sharp this scope is. #redwolfastro #astrophotography

M16, the Eagle Nebula, in narrowband false color (HSO palette).

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rick-wayne.bsky.social @rick-wayne.bsky.social · 26/06/2025

And another -- this is a SINGLE 30-second frame on the Eagle Nebula, M16, with the red filter. What's really shocking is the 100% zoom showing the Pillars of Creation (remember that Hubble image?). Yeah, gonna like this scope and camera *just fine*! #redwolfastro #astrophotography

100% crop of Eagle Nebula, showing the "Pillars of Creation" made famous by the HST.

One single 30-second mono (red filter) exposure on the Eagle Nebula through the Photoline 130 APO with the 2600MM

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rick-wayne.bsky.social @rick-wayne.bsky.social · 26/06/2025

First light for the new refractor. Sorry Mark is no longer with us, but I hope he'd be happy his scope is getting the love it deserves. Photoline 130 APO, just an hour worth of testing from a Bortle 4 site, LRGB on my also-new-to-me 2600MM. #redwolfastro #astrophotography

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rick-wayne.bsky.social @rick-wayne.bsky.social · 15/06/2025

Better take on the Iris. Two nights' data this time -- one with 30" subframes due to wind gusts, the other 60". From Merritt Reservoir in Nebraska. #redwolfastro #astrophotography

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rick-wayne.bsky.social @rick-wayne.bsky.social · 04/06/2025

Next up on the Mad Astro Nebraska feed: One (windy) night's take on the Iris Nebula through the 8" RC with a Player One Uranus-C camera. ~4 hours integration time, had to drop to 30" for a better "keeper" ratio. #redwolfastro #astrophotography

The Iris Nebula through a 1625-mm focal length Richey-Chrétien scope.

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rick-wayne.bsky.social @rick-wayne.bsky.social · 04/06/2025

Madison Astro Society members did a campout at Merritt Reservoir in Nebraska (site of the famous Star Party). I took some pictures! :-) This one is practically unedited -- much brighter than was to the eye, of course, but colors are straight out of the camera. #redwolfastro #astrophotography

Bright red, green, and blue auroral pillars from Nebraska's Merritt Reservoir.

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rick-wayne.bsky.social @rick-wayne.bsky.social · 25/03/2025

And another first look -- this one is M104, the wonderfully-named "Sombrero Galaxy". Again the issue with the walking noise, gotta solve that. 70' of integration time from my back yard. This one will definitely improve as I add more data. #redwolfastro #astrophotography

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rick-wayne.bsky.social @rick-wayne.bsky.social · 25/03/2025

A much, much better Cocoon. Figured out the dumb mistake that led to the donuts. Didn't even have to retake any of the flats or light frames. However I kept getting terrible "walking noise" if I used all the integration time, so this is only 10' of integration! #redwolfastro #astrophotography

The Cocoon Galaxy and its gravitationally-interacting companion.

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Reposted by @rick-wayne.bsky.social

Robert Farley @drfarls.bsky.social · 24/03/2025

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rick-wayne.bsky.social @rick-wayne.bsky.social · 23/03/2025

OK, a peek under the kimono that most astrophotographers won't give you: This is what happens when I screw up bigly. This is a really cool pair of gravitationally-interacting galaxies, the big one is the Cocoon Galaxy. The irritating donuts are *supposed* to be calibrated out!

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Reposted by @rick-wayne.bsky.social

Erica Chenoweth @chenoweth.bsky.social · 19/03/2025

In February 2025 alone, we tallied 2085+ protests, incl major protests in support of federal workers, LGBTQ rights, immigrant rights, Palestinian self-determination, Ukraine, demonstrations against Tesla, & protests against Trump’s agenda more generally. This compares w/ 937 protests in Feb 2017.

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rick-wayne.bsky.social @rick-wayne.bsky.social · 20/03/2025

At last! The Thor's Helmet image is in the bag -- not perfect, could always use more data and tweaks, but after working on nothing else since mid-January...I think it's done! Supernova remnant in hydrogen and oxygen, RGB stars. 8" RC telescope. #redwolfastro #astrophotography

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rick-wayne.bsky.social @rick-wayne.bsky.social · 10/03/2025

Was going to get some star-color RGB to finish up my Thor's Helmet project, but apparently the tarp over the rig isn't as waterproof as I thought. Both the old Windows laptop and the Raspberry Pi appear dead. Trying to knock together an old Pi 3 to run the devices so I can get some data this week.

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rick-wayne.bsky.social @rick-wayne.bsky.social · 28/02/2025

Elephant's Trunk again; think I've learned a thing or two in the meantime. 3h Hubble (S-H-O = R-G-B) palette+1h broadband for star color. Really brings out the molecular structures in the nebula. That brings me up to date; I'll post new ones as I finish them. #redwolfastro #astrophotography

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rick-wayne.bsky.social @rick-wayne.bsky.social · 24/02/2025

NGC 7635: Bubble Nebula. Pentultimate image on my journey. 6H of H-alpha, OIII, and SII plus ~1H broadband for accurate star color. The Bubble is blown by immense stellar winds from the huge bright center star that will probably go supernova in 10-20M years. 9/2024. #redwolfastro #astrophotography

NGC 7635, the Bubble Nebula, in the HSO palette plus RGB stars.

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rick-wayne.bsky.social @rick-wayne.bsky.social · 24/02/2025

Here's what the aurora really looked like to the eye.

Aurora borealis from Blue Mound State Park

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rick-wayne.bsky.social @rick-wayne.bsky.social · 22/02/2025

Much of North America saw the aurorae last spring. Janet and I almost missed it, but a friend texted me and we dragged our aged butts out to Blue Mound. Awful glad we did. This is what Photoshop's "auto tone" made of my panorama. Naked-eye, wasn't quite so wild. #redwolfastro #astrophotography

Aurora borealis from Blue Mount State Park, May 2024

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rick-wayne.bsky.social @rick-wayne.bsky.social · 20/02/2025

2024 Eclipse #3! My favorite, just past totality and just before the diamond ring. The huge prominence at 4 o'clock was naked-eye visible the whole time, it was crazy how you could see the whole corona but with this tiny spark just blazing out. #redwolfastro #astrophotography

"Third contact" at the 2024 total eclipse. Lunar valleys allow bits of the chromosphere to show.

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rick-wayne.bsky.social @rick-wayne.bsky.social · 19/02/2025

Here's the closeup shot of totality in 2024, through the 8" RC. HDR composite of three exposures.

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rick-wayne.bsky.social @rick-wayne.bsky.social · 18/02/2025

Next up are a few shots of the 2024 total eclipse. We went to Paragould, AR and I shot from the motel parking lot. This is a composite of 6 different images from 2 scopes -- HDR widefield for the corona, and three from the 8" for detail. Exposures 1/2000" to 1/30". #redwolfastro #astrophotography

2024 total eclipse, showing the corona and solar prominences

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rick-wayne.bsky.social @rick-wayne.bsky.social · 17/02/2025

NGC 6888, the Crescent Nebula. Ha+OIII+RGB stars. Wikipedia: "...formed by the fast stellar wind from the Wolf-Rayet star WR 136 colliding with and energizing the slower moving wind ejected by the star when it became a red giant". WR 136 is the center bright star. #redwolfastro #astrophotography

NGC 6888, the Crescent Nebula. Largely H-alpha emission, but with RGB star color.

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rick-wayne.bsky.social @rick-wayne.bsky.social · 15/02/2025

I originally got the 8" scope for Galaxy Season, the spring when the nebula-rich part of the Milky Way has moved into the daytime sky and so distant galaxies are The Thing. But it also has enough reach for tiny planetary nebulae. Here is M27, the Dumbbell Nebula. #redwolfastro #astrophotography

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