Interesting Astronomy & Astrophysics news from the week of 3/1/2021

Next week’s night sky: When the moon reaches its third-quarter phase at 8:30 p.m. EST on Friday, March 5 (or 1:30 GMT on Saturday, March 6), it will rise in the middle of the night, and then remain visible in the southern sky all morning. At this phase, the moon is half-illuminated, on its western side – towards the pre-dawn sun. Third-quarter moons are positioned ahead of the Earth in our trip around the Sun. About 3½ hours later, Earth will occupy that same location in space. […]

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The Orion Nebula

This is the Orion Nebula, the brightest Nebula in our sky! Equipment Sony RX10iv Sky-watcher Star Adventurer Sky-Watcher Tripod Acquisition: 60x2min light frames, ISO 800, F/4.0, 540 mm 30 Dark Frames 50 Bias Frames 50 Flat Frames Preprocessing stacked in DSS, 2x drizzle enabled Post-processing stretched data in Gimp combined unstretched and stretched data to preserve the core slight color saturation and curve adjustment Annotated Image Do you like this photo? Comment below what object I should look at next!

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The Andromeda Galaxy

This is the closest galaxy to Earth and the Milky Way – and it will collide with the milky way in about 4 million years! Equipment Sony RX10iv Sky-watcher Star Adventurer Sky-Watcher Tripod Acquisition: 60x2min light frames, ISO 800, F/4.0 30 Dark Frames 50 Bias Frames 50 Flat Frames Preprocessing stacked in DSS Post-processing stretched data in Gimp combined unstretched and stretched data to preserve the core slight color saturation and curve adjustment Gimp Denoise Image with objects: Do you like this photo? Comment below what object […]

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Interesting Astronomy & Astrophysics news from the week of 2/21/2021

Next Week’s Night Sky: With the full moon nearly completely gone from Friday’s night sky, this is a great time to get some stargazing in! Bring your favorite pair of binoculars, and feast you eyes on the many beautiful objects in the night sky. My Own Research I found eight blue E+A galaxies in a galactic filament in the Coma cluster of galaxies. An E+A galaxy is a galaxy that has just transformed from its “young” stage to its “old stage.” A galactic filament is simply a […]

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Interesting Astronomy & Astrophysics news from the week of 2/7/2021

Next Week’s Night Sky: When the moon completes the first quarter of its orbit around Earth at 1:47 p.m. EST (or 18:47 GMT) on Friday, Feb. 19, the relative positions of the Earth, sun, and moon will cause us to see it half-illuminated — on its eastern side. In the first quarter, the moon always rises around noon and sets around midnight, so it is also visible in the afternoon daytime sky. The evenings surrounding the first quarter are the best for seeing the lunar terrain when […]

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The Pleiades (M45)

The Pleiades star cluster, also known as the Seven Sisters and Messier 45, is a conspicuous object in the night sky with a prominent place in ancient mythology. The cluster contains hundreds of stars, of which only a handful are commonly visible to the unaided eye. The stars in the Pleiades are thought to have formed together around 100 million years ago, making them 1/50th the age of our sun, and they lie some 130 parsecs (425 light years) away Location My Photo Acquisition 12×2′ light frames 10 dark frames 50 offset frames […]

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Interesting Astronomy & Astrophysics news from the week of 1/31/2021

Next Week’s Night Sky: At 19:05 GMT on Thursday, Feb. 11, the moon will officially reach its new moon phase. While new, the moon is travelling between Earth and the sun. Since sunlight can only reach the far side of the moon, and the moon is in the same region of the sky as the sun, the moon becomes completely hidden from view for about a day. After the new moon Earth’s celestial night-light will return to shine in the western evening sky. A Black Widow Pulsar […]

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Interesting Astronomy & Astrophysics news from the week of 1/24/2021

Next Week’s Night Sky: When the moon reaches its third quarter phase at 17:37 GMT (or 12:37 p.m. EST) on Thursday, Feb. 4, it will rise in the middle of the night, and then remain visible in the southern sky all morning. At this phase the moon is illuminated on its western side, towards the pre-dawn Sun. Third quarter moons are positioned ahead of the Earth in our trip around the Sun. About 3½ hours later, Earth will occupy that same location in space. The week of […]

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Star Trails

This is an image of star trails that I took from my house. You can see how the stars move across the sky in a space of just 45 minutes! The point that the stars circle around points directly to the north — that is the location of the north star. Acquisition 30×90 sec exposures (total of 45 minutes) 200 ISO F/2.1 35mm zoom Processing Stacked the photos in Deep Sky Stacker Auto Histogram Stretch in Gimp Denoise in gimp Slight crop

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Interesting Astronomy & Astrophysics news from the week of 1/17/2021

Next Week’s Night Sky: January 28th is the full moon. This is a wonderful time to take a good look at the moon through binoculars —  you should be able to make out many fine and beautiful details! Youngest Magnetar Astronomers discovered the youngest member of a bizarre group of stars, known as magnetars, using NASA’s Neil Gehrels Swift Telescope in March of 2020. And now, further observations shed even more light on the exotic beast. Magnetars are a special breed of already strange neutron stars. Remnants […]

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