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Brian Ventrudo

About Brian Ventrudo

Brian Ventrudo is a lifelong stargazer, writer, former scientist, and the publisher of Cosmic Pursuits.

Our Sun’s Lost Sibling

April 28, 2025 by Brian Ventrudo Filed Under: Science

Our home star at summer solstice on June 22, 2022.

Like most stars in the Milky Way, our Sun was born in a cluster of hundreds of new stars in a cloud of glowing gas and dust like the Orion Nebula, then settled down with its siblings in an open star cluster like the Pleiades.  Over the next few hundred million years, as it made its way around the Milky Way, this new cluster of stars was slowly pulled apart by tidal forces and the gravitation pull of passing dust clouds.  Some of the family members may have traveled together for another billion years as a stellar association or a moving group. But like human siblings, they were eventually separated once and for all by the vicissitudes of the outside world. [Read more…] about Our Sun’s Lost Sibling

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Filed Under: Science

Galaxy Hopping with a 2-Inch Telescope

March 27, 2025 by Brian Ventrudo Filed Under: Astronomy Images and Video, Deep Sky

Messier 81 (left) and Messier 82 (right), the largest two galaxy in the M81 Group. Imaged with a Seestar 50 smart telescope, 174x20s, with the telescope in EQ mode, stacked and processed in PixInsight. Slightly cropped to frame the galaxies better.

While star clusters and many nebulae are relatively large and bright objects for visual observing, galaxies are a different matter. A side from the Magellanic Clouds, only two shine bright enough to see without optics, the Andromeda Galaxy and the Triangulum Galaxy, and most are far fainter. But with a little optical aid, dozens of galaxies pop into view. Charles Messier, who mostly observed with a 4″ refractor in 18th century France, catalogued 40 galaxies in his original list of 103 deep-sky objects, although he had no idea as to their great distance and nature as distinct ‘island universes’. [Read more…] about Galaxy Hopping with a 2-Inch Telescope

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Filed Under: Astronomy Images and Video, Deep Sky

The Winter Milky Way

February 28, 2025 by Brian Ventrudo Filed Under: Stargazing

Winter Milky Way
Looking upwards at the northern Milky Way. Image credit: Brian Ventrudo.

“It is nightfall; the clouds have vanished,
The sky is clear, pure, and cold…
Silently I watch the River of Stars…
Tonight I must enjoy life to the full,
For if I do not, next month, next year,
Who can know where I shall be?”
– Su T’ung-Po

A layer of fresh snow blankets the northern prairie, thin enough for the tops of golden wheat stubble to poke through, while a blast of arctic air from the northwest sweeps the darkening sky clean. Driving south on a secondary highway, an hour east of the city, I turn onto a back road and pull over by the side in complete darkness save for the lights of a farmhouse half a mile away. Emerging into the cold, I exhale a frosty breath and gaze upward into a bowl of black sky full of crackling stars. To the west I see Pegasus plunging towards the horizon with Andromeda in tow. The Big Dipper lies low in the north, its handle grazing the flat landscape and bowl pointed to the upper right. But the best view tonight lies overhead along the pale arc of the northern Milky Way through the bright constellations Perseus and Auriga, and down to the east skirting Orion’s eastern shoulder, passing the feet of the twins of Gemini, and into Canis Major, the Big Dog, with Sirius hovering over a snow-covered spruce tree like a Christmas star. As my eyes grow adapted to the dark, the outlines of our home galaxy begin to emerge. I grab my little telescope from the back of the car, set it securely on its mount, and get to work [Read more…] about The Winter Milky Way

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Filed Under: Stargazing

Winter Reflection Nebulae

January 31, 2025 by Brian Ventrudo Filed Under: Uncategorized

Reflection nebulae have an undeniable allure to visual observers and astrophotographers. These little blisters of blue-white light, though typically small and rather challenging to detect, offer a chance to glimpse the galaxy at work turning cold dust and gas into new star systems. So grab your telescope and let’s take a tour of some reflection nebula prominent in northern winter with my recent article published in the 1,000th issue of Sky & Telescope magazine. Click on the image to the left to download the article on PDF format (it’s about 6MB). Then enjoy the tour!

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Gaia Space Telescope Simulation of the Milky Way

January 25, 2025 by Brian Ventrudo Filed Under: Science

Enjoy this spectacular new artist’s animation of the Milky Way Galaxy based on data from ESA’s Gaia space telescope. Gaia has changed our impression of the Milky Way. Even seemingly simple ideas about the nature of our galaxy’s central bar and the spiral arms have been overturned. Gaia has shown us that it has more than two spiral arms and that they are less prominent than we previously thought. In addition, Gaia has shown that its central bar is more inclined with respect to the Sun. No spacecraft can travel beyond our galaxy, so we can’t take a selfie, but Gaia is giving us the best insight yet of what our home galaxy looks like. Once all of Gaia’s observations collected over the past decade are made available in two upcoming data releases, we can expect an even sharper view of the Milky Way.

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Recent Posts

  • Our Sun’s Lost Sibling
  • Galaxy Hopping with a 2-Inch Telescope
  • The Winter Milky Way
  • Winter Reflection Nebulae
  • Gaia Space Telescope Simulation of the Milky Way

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