In The Sky

Comet C/2025 A6 (Lemmon) was observed from Dyer Observatory just prior to sunrise on October 5, 2025.  These two-minute exposures show how rapidly comets move among the background stars and how quickly the dust tail can change.  Numerous passing satellites left streaks in several of the frames, and the… Read More

The Witch’s Broom Nebula is part of a large supernova remnant known as the Cygnus Loop. The dominant red and teal emission is due to hydrogen and oxygen atoms. The image above is a composite of nearly 10 hours of exposure with a color camera with approximately… Read More

The Dumbbell Nebula. Credit: Billy Teets In the lesser-known constellation of Vulpecula, the fox, lie the well-known remains of a small, sun-like star that perished fairly recently, at least on cosmic timescales – the Dumbbell Nebula.  Shorter exposure photographs usually only capture the brighter lobes of gas, helping to… 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

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

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

Just off the famous belt of Orion lie several regions of nebulosity, each around 1.500 light-years away, that are favorite targets for astrophotographers. To the right of Alnitak (the brightest star of the image) is a large complex of gas with a dust cloud seen in silhouette – the… Read More