Tag: nebulae

NGC 5189 from Hubble

Why is this beautiful nebula so complicated ? When a star is dying, it blast away its outer layers, usually into a simple overall shape. Sometimes this shape is a sphere, sometimes a double lobe, and sometimes a ring or a helix. In this image, however, no such simple structure has emerged. To help find out why, Hubble Space Telescope recently observed NGC 5189 in Hydrogen, Oxygen and Sulfur emission lines. Previous findings indicated the existence of multiple periods of material outflow, including a recent one that […]

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Nebulosity in the Auriga Region

This image showcases much of the nebulosity in the Auriga region in its natural colors. On the left is the flaming star nebula, an emission-reflection nebulae ionized by the star at its core. The blue parts are reflection, and the red parts are emission. At top center lies the tadpole nebula, a strong emission nebula. On the left are the spider and fly nebulae, two complex regions, of dark nebula, dust, emission nebulae, and reflection nebulae. Below theses two nebula is an open star cluster. Scroll down […]

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Messier 42 and surrounding nebulosity

This image showcases the bright orion nebula and its surrounding dust. The bright central nebula is lit by the star cluster at its center; the rest of the dust is a combination of glowing red hydrogen and darker, cooler dust. Some notable features in this image include the tip of the horsehead nebula on the bottom left, and the dark trail of dust including NGC 1999 on the right. This image combines 28 hours of long exposure with 30 minutes of short exposure to preserve dynamic range. […]

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NGC 1999 from Hubble

NGC 1999 is a dust-filled nebula with a vast hole of empty space in the center. It is a reflection nebula illuminated by the light of the variable star V380 Orionis. It was previously believed that the black patch was a dense cloud of dust and gas which blocked light that would normally pass through. However, when Herschel observed the space, itresulted in continued black space. This led to the belief that either the cloud material was immensely dense or that an unexplained phenomenon had been detected. […]

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The ghostly shell of Andromeda

This image, I think, is one of the best images I have produced. It’s absolutely incredible to me the vastness of this object — it would take light 200,000 years to cross this galaxy. 26 hours of pure data from a bortle 1 site were used to create the incredibly deep astrograph. The faint shell around the bright galaxy was most likely created by past gravitational interactions with other galaxies. Image: Equipment: Nikon D90 Sigma 300mm prime lens Sky-Watcher Star Adventurer Star Adventurer Tripod Bahnitov Mask Intervalometer […]

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M83 from Hubble

This is definitely the largest and most beautiful image I have processed to date. Hubble took a stunning 6 panel mosiac in 5 different color bands to create this awesome astrograph. I highly recommend checking out the full mosiac hosted on gigapan: http://www.gigapan.com/gigapans/227085. The Hubble photograph captures thousands of star clusters, hundreds of thousands of individual stars, and “ghosts” of dead stars called supernova remnants. The galactic panorama unveils a tapestry of the drama of stellar birth and death spread across 50,000 light-years. The newest generations of […]

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NGC 3603 from Hubble

Like a 4th of July fireworks display, a young, glittering collection of stars looks like an aerial burst. The cluster is surrounded by clouds of interstellar gas and dust—the raw material for new star formation. The nebula, located 20,000 light-years away in the constellation Carina, contains a central cluster of huge, hot stars, called NGC 3603. This environment is not as peaceful as it looks. Ultraviolet radiation and violent stellar winds have blown out an enormous cavity in the gas and dust enveloping the cluster, providing an […]

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The dumbbell nebula from Hubble

When Hubble processes images, they usually crop to the most interesting part. This image, however, shows the entire area captured by the sensor! The pure black areas in this image are parts where there is no sensor. This image looks to me more like a painting than a photo. Tho colors, the bulbos shapes, the small details all look like oil on canvas. Image: Details: All data was taken by Hubble’s Wide Field Planetary Camera 2 (WFPC2) from the following proposal: https://archive.stsci.edu/proposal_search.php?mission=hst&id=8726 Processing Stretch each channel combine colors […]

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A Cosmic Question Mark – NGC 7762 and SH2-170

This target is such a cool target to me – the question mark top is already incredibly interesting, and the little dot below is icing on the cake. NGC 7762 is the big curvy part of the question mark, and SH2-170 is the little dot at the bottom. This target is so big that I actually had to do a two panel mosaic! All the red in this image is caused by hydrogen gas being ionized by the large stars near it, causing the gas to glow […]

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Hubble’s Pillars of creation – M16

This was a tough image to process – there were a bunch of tiny dark gaps and hot pixels scattered throughout the image. The image file sizes were also quite big, so processing took a long time. Nevertheless, I got a result that I am proud of! The data is just too good to process badly. I have to give so much credit to the HLSP team – they really did a phenomenal job creating this mosaic. These towering tendrils of cosmic dust and gas sit at […]

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