Welcome to the Official Home Page of the West Jersey Astronomical Society (additionally known as the Willingboro Astronomical Society). Our club is in its 59^th year of serving both the public and the amateur astronomers of the Delaware Valley. We have a long history of public education, star parties, interesting meetings, in-depth training and experienced leadership. We are a 501(c)(3) tax-exempt organization. Click here for membership information. Members in good standing have access to the gated Barnegat Road Observing Site in the dark New Jersey Pines.

President: Vice President: Secretary: Treasurer: Star Watch Director:

Bob Lill Frank Grupico Karen Hagerman Wade Evans Suzanne Leap

This image shows the Horsehead Nebula (Barnard 33) and the Flame Nebula (NGC 2024) near the constellation Orion's eastern-most Belt star, Alnitak. The Horsehead is a small dark nebula about 1,400 light years from Earth, and its thick dustiness is silhouetted by blocking the light of the bright reddish emission nebula behind it, IC 434. IC 434 is an active star-forming region whose reddish color is the result of emissions from ionized hydrogen gas.The Flame Nebula is part of the Orion Molecular Cloud Complex and is one of the most active star-forming regions in our Milky Way galaxy. It's a hotbed of of cosmic activity where new stars are born from gravitationally collapsing clouds of gas and dust. NGC 2023, to the left of the Horsehead, is an emission and reflection nebula. This reflection nebula is one of the largest in the sky and glows blue due to dust particles scattering the blue wavelengths from the star at its core, HD 37903, in many directions; this is similar to why our daytime sky is blue. Mouseover for labels.

This image was captured from Howard's backyard in Mt Laurel, NJ, a Bortle 7 site that suffers from light pollution. The capture was over five (5) nights from Jan 30 to Feb 8, 2026. He used a ZWO ASIAIR+ controlling a Celestron Edge 8-inch, f/10 telescope with a 0.7x focal reducer (yielding an effective 1,472 mm focal length), and a ZWO ASI2600MC digital camera with a ZWO Duo-Band light pollution filter. The setup was riding a Sky-Watcher NEQ6 Pro, German equatorial mount. It was guided by an Orion 60 mm scope and a ZWO ASI120MM-S camera. Integration time totaled 17 hours (171 x 3 min, 11 x 4 min and 92 x 5 min). Pixinsight calibration used 60 dark, 30 flat and 30 dark-flat subframes. The field of view is 0.9° x 0.6° with an image scale of 0.527 arc seconds per pixel. Click here for a larger version.

Click here for the previous home page image.

Click to contact the . Members are encouraged to submit their astronomical images to the webmaster for inclusion on the WAS Home Page. Be sure to include a description, date and time, as well as equipment and photo data.