Alan Sheidler: On Friday February 13th 2026 Ken Boquist, Nate Wirth, the Heggen’s (Randy, Beth and grandaughter Lilly), Randy’s friend Ted Grevas, Bryan Raser and I met at the Paul Castle Observatory to do some observing. Ken set up an astrophotography rig while the rest of us made use of the 11″ Celestron in the observatory. The astro images were taken through the observatory scope coupled to my Nikon D7500 DSLR camera.
In addition to the images, we also visually observed the planets Jupiter, Mercury and Saturn.
Observations 2026-02-13, Paul Castle Memorial Observatory, Milan, IL, by Al Sheidler
D7500, 30s, ISO 16000 (DSC2651), faintly visible of the horse’s dark silhouette
20s, ISO 16000 (DSC2652), spectacular as always
10s, ISO 6400 (DSC2660), this open cluster is too large to capture in one shot
Celestron CPC1100HD, F7.0, Nikon D7500, 10s, ISO 6400 (DSC2656), nice cluster graced
by the ghostly planetary nebula
D7500, 10s, ISO 10000 (DSC2666), nice open cluster
D7500, 10s, ISO 6400 (DSC2662), a beautiful open cluster of stars with differing
magnitudes and colors
10s, ISO 10000 (DSC2659), nice open cluster
10s, ISO 10000 (DSC2667), excellent open cluster within a nicely populated star field
ISO 10000 (DSC2664), very nice barred spiral galaxy
D7500, 20s, ISO 10000 (DSC2671), the edge-on view shows the dark dust lane of this
active galaxy
Nikon D7500, 10s, ISO 10000 (DSC2668), nice deep yellow star within a sparce sprinkling
of field stars
F7.0, Nikon D7500, 10s, ISO 6400 (DSC2663), beautiful orange star set within a nice star
field
NCRAL Online 
