There were a couple weekends where I was out until 4:00 AM but mostly it's been until about 1:00 AM. Of course those of us in Minnesota know that during June we had cloudy skies pretty much the entire month so during that time I didn't even observe once. But May was great since I got out 5 times.
During this past winter I was able to go out to the observatory right after work. I could get 4-5 hours in whether it was a weekday or a weekend. The only issue is the cold so I'm once again glad that I have a warming house attached. So this winter I should be able to start taking photographs more often.
I do have a couple photo's that I can post however. This spring we did some planting around the observatory and added some mulch. I also laid down some stepping stones in the grass between the driveway and the front door. I also completed making a sign and hung that up in the observatory.
The one night sky photo I'm posting is one I took just this past weekend. It's of object M57 which is also named the Ring Nebula. It's a planetary nebula which is created by a star at the end of its life when it sheds its outer layers. These outer layers expand out into space but the star continues to produce faster moving particles which then catch up with the slower moving outer layer particles and causes them to glow. When early astronomers saw these objects, with telescopes that didn't have the size and quality of today's scopes, they felt that these round objects looked like planets, hence the name planetary nebula. But these objects have nothing to do with planets. Not all stars die this way, only the medium size ones. The really large stars die in supernova explosions. Our Sun is a average, medium size star so it will form a planetary nebula after another 5 billion years or so (don't wait up).
Landscaping Around Observatory
New Observatory Sign
Planetary Nebula M57 - Ring Nebula