Cosmic Pursuits

Basic astronomy and night sky information

Recent Astronomy Articles at Cosmic Pursuits

Dancing Galaxies

by Brian Ventrudo Filed Under: Science

The galaxies NGC 2936 and NGC 2937, collectively known as Arp 142 or the “Penguin and Egg” galaxies.

When it comes to galaxies, gravity and Newton’s first law of motion often combine to put the finest earthbound sculptors to shame. Take the galaxies NGC 2936 and NGC 2937, for instance. Here we see an everyday spiral galaxy bent and molded by the gravitational influence of a featureless elliptical companion galaxy into a graceful arc of stars and gas and dust a hundred thousand light years long. Together, the two bear a remarkable resemblance to a mother penguin holding watch over a shimmering egg. It’s one of the most beautiful galaxy pairs in the heavens [Read more…] about Dancing Galaxies

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The ‘Intergalactic Wanderer’

by Brian Ventrudo Filed Under: Deep Sky

A snapshot of NGC 2419, the ‘Intergalactic Wanderer’, captured with an 85mm refractor and ZWO ASI290MM camera.

Conjured by Johann Hevelius in the late renaissance, the dim, linear constellation Lynx fills in the space between the much larger constellations Gemini, Auriga, and Ursa Major, just out of the plane of the northern Milky Way. While it doesn’t much resemble its namesake and contains no bright stars, Lynx harbors one of our galaxy’s most distant outliers, the famous ‘Intergalactic Wanderer’ (NGC 2419), a globular cluster that roams the desolate expanse between the Milky Way and the Andromeda Galaxy [Read more…] about The ‘Intergalactic Wanderer’

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Sightseeing along the Perseus Arm of the Milky Way

by Brian Ventrudo Filed Under: Deep Sky

A section of the Perseus Arm of the Milky Way looking overhead from the northern hemisphere in winter.

In the early months of each year, stargazers south of the equator enjoy a dazzling view of a rich part of the Milky Way, one that’s festooned with open star clusters, emission nebulae, and bright blue-white stars. Here, in the constellations Centaurus and Crux, we gaze into one of the two major spiral arms of the Milky Way, the Scutum Centaurus Arm, that originates from the long bar of ancient stars at the core of our galaxy.

An observer looking overhead in the northern hemisphere sees a completely different perspective. Here the view lies in a direction away from the center of the galaxy into the outer reaches of the Perseus Arm, the second major spiral arm that emanates from the galactic core [Read more…] about Sightseeing along the Perseus Arm of the Milky Way

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The Taurus Molecular Cloud

by Brian Ventrudo Filed Under: Deep Sky

The Taurus Molecular Cloud, to the lower left of the Pleiades and lower right of the California Nebula in this wide-field image. The Hyades star cluster in Taurus is at middle right; the star Capella in the constellation Auriga is the bright star at left. Image credit: Brian Ventrudo

Not far from the Pleiades and Hyades star clusters along the northern Milky Way lies the coal-black fingers of the Taurus Molecular Cloud, the nearest star-forming region to Earth. Unlike the more famous Orion star factory, with the dazzling Orion Nebula and associated bright blue-white stars, the TMC is not well known to most stargazers. That’s because it doesn’t offer much to see, with no bright nebulae and just a dark and sooty network of tendrils that span more than 30o of sky. But the TMC is the nearest star-forming region to Earth, making it of considerable interest to astronomers. It’s also a rewarding target for astrophotographers who can capture its structure against the starry background in the constellations Taurus and Auriga [Read more…] about The Taurus Molecular Cloud

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Five Favorite Images from 2020

by Brian Ventrudo Filed Under: Astronomy Images and Video

Comet C/2020 F3 (NEOWISE) along with a faint summer display of aurora borealis over Calgary, Canada on July 13, 2020. Image credit and copyright: Amanda Ventrudo.

To call me an astrophotographer would be an overstatement. But that doesn’t stop me from bringing a camera along when stargazing on a clear night to complement some casual visual observations. No image can reproduce what it’s like to look through a telescope or binoculars, especially in dark sky when the eye beholds the scintillation of stars and silver-white nebulae and galaxies against the black matte of the background universe. But images have the advantage of permanence, to some degree at least, and of leaving a record of what we’ve seen and where we’ve been in the night sky over the months and years [Read more…] about Five Favorite Images from 2020

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