Kosmos

Cosmos: A Personal Voyage by Carl Sagan was a great astronomic TV show from 1980. Cosmos means universe, although Kosmos in Greek originally meant Order of the (Universe). At least for Pitagora, who invented the term. Whatever Cosmos means, you can’t go to Greece without a tripod, a camera, a long lens / telescope and a Skyguider Pro to picture the marvellous dark sky you find only on Greek Islands (and Chalkidiki of course). With my WIlliams Optics OTA plus D800 I could picture this North American nebula in the night sky of Naxos. On the bottom right, the Pelican Nebula.

Half moons are better than full moons: shadows make craters more visible

Marvellous view on all the 4 major moons of Jupiter, plus Jupiter with its red band included! First time I could shoot to such detail.

A first time (for me) at such magnification also for the Andromeda Galaxy. Please notice the smaller companion Galaxy on its top and the brown dust in its spirals.

How far is Saturn compared to Jupiter? Saturn apparent magnitude is around 0.5-1. Jupiter is around -3 (the more negative, the brighter; the Sun has -25, the Moon -12 ). So, pardon me for my excitement when I could picture Saturn, despite that it is sooo small with my tube. Click on the picture to see the rings.

Last but not least, the Pleiades. The largest of them, the 7 sisters, are blue giants surrounded by refraction nebulas. The Pleiades are known and followed by humankind from thousands of years, as witnessed by the Nebra sky disk (pass by in Halle, Germany, and find it at the State Museum)