Billy Teets

Students use handheld spectrometers to observe the spectrum of light sources and identify their composition. Credit: Joe Howell This past July, Dyer Observatory and Vanderbilt’s Programs for Talented Youth (PTY) Summer Academy at Vanderbilt for the Young (SAVY) piloted an astronomy and space science camp designed for academically advanced… Read More

Three fledgling Carolina wrens await release into the wild after being vacated from Dyer Observatory’s Seyfert Telescope dome. The fourth chick is just out of frame. Credit: Billy Teets The tool cabinet in the Seyfert Telescope dome has become prime real estate for nesting… Read More

Interstellar comet 3I/ATLAS (indicated by the white marker) appears as a faint smudge rapidly moving against the background stars in this animation from Dyer Observatory’s Seyfert Telescope. During the five minutes between each of the frames, the comet moved approximately 10,000 miles. Click on the image for a higher… Read More

In the early morning hours of August 19, 2025, Saturn’s largest moon Titan cast a shadow on Saturn’s globe. This view is a stacked image obtained by Dyer Observatory’s Seyfert Telescope. Credit: Billy Teets In the early morning hours of Tuesday, August 19, Saturn’s largest moon, Titan, passed between… Read More

The Great Hercules Cluster (M13) is one of the brightest deep-sky objects and can even be seen by the naked eye on a dark summer night. Credit: Billy Teets We often think that in order to see pretty much anything in the sky other than the Moon or some… Read More

Indiana University’s Dr. Mary Loveless highlights some of the user-friendly sensor modules that she and others routinely use in many of their projects. Credit: Billy Teets On July 14, teachers from Metro Nashville Public Schools (MNPS) and surrounding areas and institutions gathered at Dyer Observatory for an exclusive all-day… Read More

Dyer Telescope Night in Nashville, Tennessee, on June 13, 2025. Photo by Alondra Moya One of the highlights each month at Dyer Observatory is Telescope Night. During these events, visitors come to one of two hour-long sessions to get firsthand views of some of the wonders of the cosmos,… Read More

2025 marks the 60th anniversary of humanity’s robotic exploration of Mars, with Mariner 4 returning the first flyby images of our neighbor in July 1965. Eleven years later, NASA would land Viking 1 on the surface of the Red Planet, making it the first… Read More

The Leo Trio is comprised of galaxies M65 (top left), M66 (top right), and NGC 3628 (bottom). The three galaxies appear close enough together that all three can be viewed simultaneously with a small telescope. Credit: Billy Teets Now that we have reached summertime in the northern hemisphere, many… Read More

Galaxies M81 (left) and M82 (right) appear in the same field of view of many backyard telescopes. The featured image is a composite of images totaling nearly six hours of exposure taken with a 16″ telescope at Dyer Observatory. Credit: Billy Teets Our Milky Way galaxy is a treasure… Read More