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On any Sun day
A sunspot group below and right of center. This sunspot group has been given a name, AR2497.
[Nikon D750 1/500 sec. with Borg 90FL at f/5 prime focus, solar filter]
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New Year’s Aurora
Not having my fill yet of aurorae, I made a quick trip up to Fairbanks, Alaska after having gotten word of a M2-class solar flare.
Just about at midnight on New Year’s Eve this happened!
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Trifid Nebula M20
The Trifid Nebula (M20, also known as NGC 6514) I’m very pleased with this one!! This project was nearly 2 months in the making, but it was worth it.
In my opinion, the Trifid is one of the very prettiest objects in the sky, at least in the Northern Hemisphere. It’s full of rich colors and fine details in the dust lanes and gaseous structures.
I was blown away by the result I got; the image was stunning! I was especially pleased with the details in the dark dust lanes, the range of colors in the emission and reflection parts of the nebula, and the overall 3D appearance of the puffy clouds. Then, another surprise. While examining the image in detail I noticed a tiny but clear straight line jutting out from one of the clouds near the bottom. Was that an artifact, or could it be… ? I checked the Hubble archive and found what I was looking for – a high resolution close-up of the region in question and sure enough, it was an actual stellar jet! This was the first time I had captured anything like this and it was the icing on the cake:
Jet in M20 The jet itself is quite interesting:
“A stellar jet [the thin, wispy object pointing to the upper left] protrudes from the head of a dense cloud and extends three-quarters of a light-year into the nebula. The jet’s source is a very young stellar object that lies buried within the cloud. Jets such as this are the exhaust gases of star formation. Radiation from the massive star at the center of the nebula is making the gas in the jet glow, just as it causes the rest of the nebula to glow.
The jet in the Trifid is a “ticker tape,” telling the history of one particular young stellar object that is continuing to grow as its gravity draws in gas from its surroundings. But this particular ticker tape will not run for much longer. Within the next 10,000 years the glare from the central, massive star will continue to erode the nebula, overrunning the forming star, and bringing its growth to an abrupt and possibly premature end.”
– Hartmut Frommert & Christine Kronberg (SEDS)
The shorter spike pointed about 45° clockwise from the jet is a knot of denser material resisting the stellar wind “blowing” the less dense material around it.
This is certainly my best astronomical image so far.
[32″ RC f/7 with SBIG STX KAF-16803 16 megapixel camera @ Mount Lemmon SkyCenter, Arizona]
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Comet 2014/UQ4
Comet 2014/UQ4 A comet I’ve been tracking called “2014/UQ4”
This a composite of 5 stacked images. The comet is moving rapidly across the background star field, so they are smeared out while the comet itself is sharp. The tail is quite long at this point, about 30 arcminutes (half a degree).
The image below is an animation made from 31 frames show the comet moving against the background stars. Click on the image to see it animated. The frames are about 10 minutes apart in real time, with some longer gaps. As you can see it’s moving quite fast!
Animation of comet 2014/UQ4 Notice how the comet is moving *perpendicular* to the tail. That’s because contrary to popular impression, a comet tail is not due to the motion of the comet but always points directly away from the Sun.
[20″ CDK f/6.8 with FLI PL09000 camera @ Mt. Teide Observatory, Canary Islands, Spain]
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Eagle Nebula (M16)
Eagle nebula – M16 The Eagle Nebula M16. It’s called that because somebody thought the dark shapes in the center looked like an eagle taking flight. Does it look like that to you?
The central part might seem familiar to some of you; it was made famous in a Hubble image dubbed “Pillars of Creation”:
Hubble image That’s a closeup of the central region (rotated 45 deg counterclockwise).
[20″ CDK f/6.8 with FLI PL09000 camera @ Mt. Teide Observatory, Canary Islands, Spain]
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Neptune
First shot of Neptune. The pale blue color is clearly visible, as well as one or perhaps two of its moons.
[14″ SCT f/11 with ST-10XME 3 megapixel camera @ Mt. Teide Observatory, Canary Islands, Spain]
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Whale Galaxy (NGC 4631)
Whale Galaxy
The Whale Galaxy (NGC 4631). It’s a spiral galaxy viewed edge on. The common names for deep sky objects are often fanciful, but doesn’t this really look like a humpback whale (with tiny baby galaxy swimming below it)?
[20″ CDK f/6.8 with FLI PL09000 camera @ Mt. Teide Observatory, Canary Islands, Spain]
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Snake Nebula
The Snake Nebula. This one is interesting because it’s defined not by its brightness, but by its *darkness*. Western cultures tended to name only the bright things in the sky, but other cultures such as the Incas also named the dark regions in the sky. Positive space and Negative space. Both equally important.
The black is clouds of dust and gas blocking the light from the stars behind them. It may stay black for billions of years until a star comes nearby it; then it would glow pink and blue from reflected and emitted light.
The Incas believed the bright constellations represented animals, but inanimate ones; they believed the dark regions represented *living* animals.
[3″ APO refractor f/7 with ST-2000XM 2 megapixel camera @ Mt. Teide, Canary Islands, Spain]
