From my 3rd-floor condo balcony, my sky is anything but wide open. I only get a small slice of the southern horizon, reaching up to about 50° elevation. It’s a constant challenge finding targets that drift into that narrow window of visibility. But sometimes, when I can’t get out to darker skies, I take what I can from home. The weather here in Utah hasn’t made things easier — the skies have been covered for the past couple of weeks. This weekend finally opened up with a few clear hours, just enough time to capture something and break in my new Apertura Carbonstar 200 Newtonian.

This is Fomalhaut, one of the brightest stars in the southern sky, sitting just 25 light years away. It dominates this part of the sky, and I thought it would make a perfect subject to show off the Carbonstar’s sharp diffraction spikes. That brilliant blue-white light is its true color, and Newtonian optics give it that signature starburst look. Fomalhaut is a young A-type star, famous for the vast ring of dusty debris surrounding it — sometimes called the “Eye of Sauron” in Hubble images. Even with a very limited balcony view, nights like this remind me that there’s always something worth capturing. Sometimes it’s not about chasing faint nebulae, but just appreciating the brilliance of a single star.