It was a cold but dull New Year's Eve, no chance of leaving my equipment imaging whilst we partied. So what do I want to have achieved this time next year? After a bit of thought, here's a list of 10 projects for 2009. Let's see how many I complete over the coming months. Happy New Year!

1. Capture Saturn's rings edge on

I've been constructing a montage of Saturn over the last few years as the rings close. In 2009 the rings finally close and I can add to that montage. In addition, as Saturn is ...
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At magnitude 16.6, this quasar in Lynx is probably the most distant object which average amateur setups can image. Despite being so faint, the object is actually very luminous, but also very distant. It has a red-shift of 3.87 which puts it at around 12.9 billion light years away from us.

Although not visible on this monochrome image, the red-shift leads to a very deep red hue to the quasar. For a while this led people to believe it was a carbon star in our own galaxy. When its red-shift was ...
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Having taken three sets of images of Eris during November and early December, I think I've located her. At magnitude 18.7 this would be fair achievement with my 8" LX90. There's no way one image would be conclusive as the dwarf planet is only just above the background noise. But three images, corroborated by where Cartes du Ciel says she should be, means I'm reasonably confident. See the Minor Planets page for more on this.

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