Central Texas Astro Photo is Live!

 

I've been sitting on this one for a while, and I'm finally excited to put it out there: welcome to Central Texas Astro Photo.

If you've followed along here for any length of time, you know I love this hobby — the setup, the long nights under Texan skies in my observatory, the processing rabbit holes, all of it. Central Texas Astro Photo grew out of that same love, but with a more focused mission: to make astrophotography and astronomy more accessible to folks right here in Central Texas, whether you're just curious about what's overhead tonight or you're ready to point a camera at it yourself.

The mission is pretty simple. Get more people looking up and help them do it well. That means teaching the basics — how to find your way around the night sky, how a telescope actually works, how to take that first long-exposure shot without wanting to throw the camera in the yard — and it also means sharing my own images and experience along the way, mistakes included.

But there's a bigger piece to this too, and it's honestly the part I'm most excited about. A core part of the mission is raising funds to donate telescopes to local schools. Not every kid gets a chance to look through a real telescope, let alone have one sitting in their classroom to use whenever the sky cooperates, and I think that's the kind of thing that can hook someone on science for life. So, beyond the teaching and the outreach events, Central Texas Astro Photo is also working to raise money specifically earmarked for putting telescopes into the hands of local schools and students who wouldn't otherwise have access to one. Here's the concrete part: 50% of all funds raised from the astrophotography classes goes directly toward donating smart scopes to local schools. So if you sign up for a class, you're not just learning how to shoot the night sky yourself, you're helping put that same capability in a classroom.

Where it serves is the whole Central Texas region — Liberty Hill, Austin, and the surrounding Hill Country communities where we're lucky enough to still have reasonably dark skies within a short drive. Whether that's a star party, a hands-on session with one of my Dwarf3 smart scopes, or a visit to a local observatory, the idea is to bring the experience to people rather than assume they'll find their own way into it.

I was actually inspired by helping a local schoolboy out with an astronomy project for a science fair. He did so well and scored an award ascertaining that his project was several years above his grade level! He was thrilled, and so was I. So-much-so that I gave him a pair of astronomical binoculars to keep his interests alive. Thus, I got the inspiration to develop this program.

This didn't come together overnight. Honestly, it's been several months in the making — figuring out the right format, testing what actually works when you're teaching someone astrophotography for the first time, and making sure I had something worth putting my name on before I launched it.  There were a few false starts along the way, but that's pretty normal for anything worth doing right.

If you want more information, you can click here: centraltexasastrophoto.com.

Over a Year with the Dwarf3 Smart Telescope

It’s been over a year since I acquired a Dwarf3 smart scope, so wanted to check in and talk about my experience. I have my own observatory with a full astrophotography setup but wanted something portable which was easy to set up and run for excursions and travel. I had played around with a Dwarf 2 belonging to someone I met at a star party, and decided to go ahead with the Dwarf3. It’s been a great experience so far.

Almost immediately, I was able to collect very nice images from my property here in the central Texas area. The interface has been easy to use and is updated fairly regularly with new functionality to expand the scope’s capabilities. Really liking the dual scope design, which allows for widefield and tele astro and regular photography. The recent star trails addition was a good call by the folks at Dwarflab which provides very nice results. Really, you can set it up and capture great astro images in no time.

The M8 Lagoon Nebula

As an aviation buff, the tracking feature has been fun to mess around with. I’ve tracked and acquired video and stills of aircraft flying up to 40,000’, and have also had it capturing some action at a nearby glider field.

Portability is great! I took it with me on two trips to Australia last year and was able to capture southern hemisphere objects very easily. No fancy setup process, just turn it on, use the Atlas to find object and shoot away. Literally a portable observatory.

The Eta Carinae Nebula, shot from Australia.

I recently acquired another two Dwarf3s and will be using them to teach astrophotography in my area. I taught astronomy for a little while at a nearby observatory and used the Dwarf there to give visitors a “camera view” of the objects they were observing visually through our main telescope. It always impressed folks!

Anyway, a great system that continues to evolve. Highly recommend it if you’re looking to get into astrophotography without great expense.

Buck Moon Rising with the Dwarf3 Smartscope

This was taken with a Dwarf3 smart scope from my home in Central Texas. It is sped up x2 speed, and shows this month's (July, 2026) full moon rising behind a decorative Texas windmill. 

The Dwarf3 is quite a versatile device, and you can shoot all sorts of stills and videos with it. Click here for a detailed write-up.

🌌 August 2026 Night Sky Highlights

August is shaping up to be one of the best months of the year for skywatching, and Central Texas is a good seat for most of it. We've got the year's best Perseid meteor shower, a deep partial lunar eclipse that will look almost total, Venus blazing away all evening, and the summer Milky Way still riding high overhead after dark. Here's what I'm keeping an eye on this month.

🌙 Moon Phases

Last Quarter, August 5. Half lit, rising after midnight and sitting high before dawn. This kicks off one of the best dark sky stretches of the whole year, running from about the 6th through the 15th, with no bright moon around to wash things out in the evening. Good week to plan a Milky Way session.

New Moon, August 12. No moon at all this night, and it lines up with two big events. Earlier in the day, the new moon passes directly in front of the sun, creating a total solar eclipse across northern Russia, Greenland, Iceland and northern Spain. We won't see that from Texas, but the payoff for us comes after dark, when the Perseid meteor shower hits its peak under a completely moonless sky. More on that below.

First Quarter, August 20. Half the moon lit up in the evening sky, a nice night for detailed lunar viewing since the terminator, that line between light and shadow, runs across some good crater country.

Full Sturgeon Moon, August 27. This one gets its name from sturgeon fishing being especially good this time of year on the Great Lakes. It rises the evening of the 27th and is up bright most of the night, but this month it comes with a real treat. Earth's shadow will cover about 96 percent of the moon's face in a deep partial lunar eclipse, close enough to a total eclipse that it should still glow that coppery red "blood moon" color. The partial phase gets underway around 9:33 PM CDT, with the deepest point of the eclipse around 11:12 PM CDT, and it wraps up a little after midnight heading into the 28th. No filters or glasses needed, just find a spot with a clear view toward the moon and enjoy the show.

🪐 Planetary Happenings

Venus is putting on its best show of the year in the evening sky. Look west after sunset, you honestly can't miss it, it's the blazing "evening star." It reaches greatest eastern elongation, its farthest apparent distance from the sun, around August 14 to 16, which is when an evening planet is typically at its best and easiest to view. On the 15th, a thin crescent moon parks itself nearby for a pretty pairing. If you're following it with a telescope, Venus is heading toward dichotomy this month too, the point where it looks exactly half lit, like a tiny first quarter moon.

Saturn is a morning object, rising before midnight and climbing high in the south before dawn. It's building toward its October opposition, so it's getting brighter and rising a little earlier each night. The rings, which have been nearly edge on for a while now, are slowly opening back up, so it's worth pointing a telescope at it.

Mars is also a morning planet, working its way eastward through Taurus and on toward Gemini. It's easy to pick out with just your eyes as a reddish point low in the east before sunup.

Mercury reaches greatest elongation west on August 2, its best morning appearance of the stretch, then slowly sinks back into the sun's glare as the month goes on. On the morning of the 15th, keep an eye out for Mercury passing close to Jupiter, low near the horizon before sunrise, worth a look with binoculars if you've got a clear eastern view.

Jupiter is just returning to the morning sky after being lost in the sun's glare in July. It's bright, but it stays very low in the dawn twilight all month, so you'll need a clear view down to the horizon to catch it.

☄️ Meteor Showers

Perseids. This is the big one, and 2026 is shaping up to be a great year for it. The shower peaks on the night of August 12 into the early hours of August 13, right at new moon, so there's no moonlight at all to interfere. Under a truly dark sky, forecasters are calling for somewhere in the neighborhood of 50 to 100 meteors an hour at the peak, though from a typical backyard you'll see fewer than that. The best window is late night through the couple hours before dawn on the 13th, when the radiant up in Perseus is riding high. Get away from town lights if you can, give your eyes twenty minutes or so to adjust, and just look up. Rating: excellent this year, thanks to that dark moonless sky.

Southern Delta Aquariids and Alpha Capricornids. Both of these carried over from late July and are winding down through the first week or so of August. Rates are low at this point, but the Capricornids occasionally throw a bright fireball, so it's worth a glance if you happen to be out there already.

☄️ Comet Watch

Comet 10P/Tempel 2 is at its best right at the start of the month. It reached perihelion on August 2 and made its closest pass by Earth on August 3, hovering around magnitude 7 to 8, which puts it within reach of binoculars or a small telescope from a dark site, though it stays too faint for the naked eye. It's a morning object, low in the south before dawn, moving from Capricornus toward Piscis Austrinus. After this first week or two, it starts fading fast and will likely drop below magnitude 10 by mid-September, so if you want to catch it, early August is the window.

🔭 Deep Sky Objects for August

With the summer Milky Way still arching overhead after dark, August holds onto July's great lineup toward Sagittarius and Scorpius, plus a couple of favorites in Hercules and Cygnus. Best viewed during that dark stretch between the 6th and the 15th, and especially around the new moon on the 12th. Toward the end of the month, watch the eastern sky start bringing in some fall targets too.

M13, the Hercules Cluster. A globular cluster, a tight ball packed with hundreds of thousands of ancient stars. Naked eye under dark skies, a faint smudge. Binoculars, a nice fuzzy glow. Telescope, it resolves into a sprawl of individual pinpoint stars.

M8, the Lagoon Nebula. A glowing cloud of gas and dust actively forming new stars, sitting in Sagittarius. Naked eye, a fair hazy patch from a dark site. Binoculars show it well. Telescope gives an excellent view.

M20, the Trifid Nebula. Known for the dark dust lanes that seem to split it into three sections. Not visible naked eye. Faint and small in binoculars. In a telescope, especially a bigger one, those dust lanes start to show themselves.

M22, the Sagittarius Cluster. Another bright globular, and one of the closest to us. Naked eye, a faint smudge under dark skies. Good in binoculars, excellent in a telescope.

M57, the Ring Nebula. The glowing shell of gas that a dying, sun-like star puffed off into space. Not visible naked eye, and tough in binoculars since it's so small. In a telescope, a classic little glowing smoke ring hanging in space.

Albireo. A gorgeous double star at the head of Cygnus the Swan, one star gold, one blue. Naked eye, it just looks like a single star. In binoculars, with steady hands, you might just split it into two. In a telescope, it's one of the best color contrast doubles in the whole sky.

The Perseus Double Cluster. Two open star clusters sitting side by side, and a nice one to pick up late in the month as Perseus climbs higher in the northeast during the evening. Naked eye under dark skies, a faint hazy patch. Binoculars show it beautifully. A telescope at low power gives one of the prettiest views in the sky, two clusters worth of stars in the same field.

Clear skies, everyone.

Radio Communications: FT8 Monitoring Update

 

A while back, I discussed how I had been monitoring FT8 ham radio signals. FT8 is a digital ham radio mode that packs short, structured messages (callsigns, grid squares, signal reports) into 15-second time slots and uses heavy forward-error-correction plus synchronized clocks to decode signals many decibels below what the human ear or older modes could ever pull out of the noise.

It's fascinating, and the screen capture above is from an app that I built to log and map FT8 signals that I receive here in Central Texas from Hams who are engaging in this form of communication worldwide. The furthest signal I have detected is Rodriguez Island, some 11,000 miles away!

Its Creator is an Astrophysicist (and Nobel Laureate). FT8 was co-created by Dr. Joe Taylor (K1JT). In the professional scientific world, Dr. Taylor is a high-profile radio astronomer. In 1993, he won the Nobel Prize in Physics for discovering the first binary pulsar (a pair of dense neutron stars orbiting each other). That discovery provided the first indirect evidence for the existence of gravitational waves - a monumental breakthrough in astrophysics.

Standard FT8 relies on bouncing radio waves off Earth's ionosphere to reach the other side of the planet. The ionosphere is entirely dictated by astronomy - specifically, Solar Physics:

•  - Solar Flares & Sunspots: Energy from the Sun charges (ionizes) the upper atmosphere. When the Sun is active, high-frequency (HF) bands open up globally; when it's quiet, those paths disappear.
•  - Space Weather Tracking: Because millions of automated FT8 signals are sent around the globe every day, scientists use aggregate FT8 data (via networks like PSK Reporter) as a real-time, global sensor array to map how the Sun's radiation impacts Earth's upper atmosphere during solar storms.

The graphic below explains the concept fairly well:

Anyway, good fun and it's been interesting to watch those signals come in as various factors affect our atmosphere. Easy to get into as well. I'll put a post together about how I do it sometime soon!