Brian Ventrudo

Dancing Galaxies

May 24, 2021 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’

March 24, 2021 by Brian Ventrudo Filed Under: Deep Sky

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

February 26, 2021 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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Stargazing Tools – Electronically-Assisted Astronomy (EAA)

Filed Under: Fundamentals of Stargazing

In this final month, we visit the cutting edge of stargazing to investigate the growing field of electronically-assisted astronomy (EAA) with astronomy cameras. EAA, a form of 'snapshot astrophotography', got started perhaps 20 years ago when a handful of amateur astronomers learned how to adapt simple and inexpensive computer webcams for use with ...

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Deep Sky Tours – February

Filed Under: Fundamentals of Stargazing

While our whole-sky tours have come to an end in this course, there are still a handful of intriguing deep-sky objects I wish to show you how to find. These are objects you would have found difficult to find a year ago, but if you have been following most of the tours and searching for at least some of the DSO’s described during the course, you sho...

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