Astrophotography by Jay Ballauer

Here is a selection of just some of the images I have taken over the many years of pointing a telescope at the night sky. For the most part, they are taken with a wide variety of apochromatic refractors, ranging from 3" to 6", with narrow-field images taken with a 12.5" RCOS RC. A variety of cameras are used and you can assume that the images are from a cooled astro CCD unless otherwise indicated in the title. Clicking on any of the images will bring up a separate page with more information about it. My goal is to add more images over time, as well as provide more of the individual pages full of details about them.

Some images also include an interactive slider below them — drag it to reveal the stars in that photo, labeled with their name and magnitude, straight from real astronomical catalogs. I created the tool and I thought you'd appreciate trying it with your own images! (see Sidebar: AllAboutAstro Labeling Tool).

Still sorting through older images from past cameras and setups? Take a look at the legacy gallery — a working area of earlier and lesser attempts that haven't yet made the cut for the main collection above.