About
This site is a personal archive of 15+ years of astrophotography — from the first wobbly frames through a 4" Maksutov to multi-panel mosaics of the Moon captured with dedicated planetary cameras. Every image here was taken, processed, and published by Alvaro Vaquero from backyards and observing sites across the United States and Spain.
Philosophy
Astrophotography is patience made visible. Every pixel in these images represents thousands of individual frames captured, stacked, and processed to reveal detail invisible to the naked eye. Whether it's the cloud bands of Jupiter rotating in a 30-minute animation, or a 14-day-old Full Moon mosaic so detailed you can identify individual craters at the terminator — the goal is always the same: capture the cosmos with the fidelity it deserves.
This site is built to let these images breathe. Every photograph can be viewed at its native resolution, zoomed to 100% or beyond, because in astrophotography, every pixel matters.
Equipment Timeline
First telescope — Celestron NexStar 4 SE with NexImage webcam-style camera
Upgraded to Celestron CPC 800 — an 8" Schmidt-Cassegrain, still the primary scope
Added DMK 21AU04 monochrome CCD for higher-resolution planetary imaging
Orion EON 80mm ED refractor acquired for widefield deep-sky work
QHY-8 color CCD camera for deep-sky imaging
Skyris 236M — high-speed monochrome camera with RGB filters for ultimate planetary detail
CPC 800 EQ Mount with wedge for long-exposure equatorial tracking
Continued refining techniques and capturing from new locations
Observing Sites
Sunnyvale, CA
Early suburban backyard imaging
Campbell, CA
The Lechero Observatory — primary observing site
Irving, TX
Texas skies
Corinth, TX
North Texas, darker skies
Granada, Spain
Under the skies of Andalusia