Cosmic Pursuits

Basic astronomy and night sky information

nebula

The Rosette Nebula

By Filed Under: Deep Sky

The central region of the Rosette Nebula and star cluster NGC 2244 (credit: Terry Hancock at Downunderobservatory.com)
The central region of the Rosette Nebula and star cluster NGC 2244 (credit: Terry Hancock at Downunderobservatory.com)

Look to the east of mighty Orion and you’ll see the constellation Monoceros, the Unicorn. While its stars are faint, Monoceros holds a small treasure chest of superb deep-sky sights for backyard stargazers. Perhaps the most striking is the Rosette Nebula, an achingly beautiful blossom of glowing gas and dust where new stars are forming.  The Rosette is an immense nebula, some three times larger than the Orion Nebula and three times farther away.  As you see in the image above by Terry Hancock, the nebula overlaps the star cluster NGC 2244 which has formed within the nebula and blown a bubble to give us a look inside. While hard to see the Rosette visually, even in large telescopes, the nebula is an excellent photographic target and the cluster is a superb sight [Read more…] about The Rosette Nebula

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Snapshot of the Sword of Orion

By Filed Under: Astronomy Images and Video

The Sword of Orion and the Orion Nebula (M42) through a DSLR camera at 200mm, f/4, 2 seconds, ISO6400.

Never let a clear sky go to waste! After a quick look with binoculars at the Orion Nebula and the other features in and around the Sword of Orion, I tried to capture the same view with a quick snapshot through a DSLR. This view shows the Sword region framed against tree limbs over Washington, D.C.

Taken with an unmodified Nikon D750 with Nikkor 70-200 mm f/4 lens at 200 mm, 2 seconds, ISO6400.

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The Merope Nebula

By Filed Under: Deep Sky

A wide field and detailed image of the Pleiades and its enveloping nebulosity by Terry Hancock and Robert Fields. See image details at this link.
A wide field and detailed image of the Pleiades and its enveloping nebulosity by Terry Hancock and Robert Fields. See image details at this link.

In the months from late November through early March, in both the northern and southern hemispheres, the famous Pleiades star cluster grabs the attention of experienced and untutored stargazers alike. The little dipper-shaped cluster, which is about the width of your little finger held at arm’s length, takes its name from the seven sisters who were daughters of the titan Atlas and the sea nymph Pleione, but nearly every world culture has a name and legend for this group. In Sanskrit, the cluster is called Kṛttikā, which refers to the six sisters of the god Murugan. The Japanese refer to this cluster as Subaru, from which the famous car company takes its name and logo. In the middle ages in Europe, the Pleiades was associated with Halloween because it reached its highest point near midnight on that date. Legend also tells of the Pleiades reaching high into the sky on a night in 1650 B.C. when the island of Santorini in Greece exploded in a volcanic eruption and destroyed the Minoan civilization on a nearby island [Read more…] about The Merope Nebula

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The Dusty Birth of a New Star

By Filed Under: Science

A newly formed star lights up the surrounding cosmic clouds in this image from ESO’s La Silla Observatory in Chile. Dust particles in the vast clouds that surround the star HD 97300 diffuse its light, like a car headlight in enveloping fog, and create the reflection nebula IC 2631. Although HD 97300 is in the spotlight for now, the very dust that makes it so hard to miss heralds the birth of additional, potentially scene-stealing, future stars. Credit: ESO.
A newly formed star lights up the surrounding cosmic clouds in this image from ESO’s La Silla Observatory in Chile. Dust particles in the vast clouds that surround the star HD 97300 diffuse its light, like a car headlight in enveloping fog, and create the reflection nebula IC 2631. Although HD 97300 is in the spotlight for now, the very dust that makes it so hard to miss heralds the birth of additional, potentially scene-stealing, future stars. Credit: ESO.

This marvelous image from the European Southern Observatory shows a small section of the Milky Way going about its business making new stars. Here you see in this dusty region the reflected light of a new main sequence star, HD 97300, as it settles down into its billion-year life span [Read more…] about The Dusty Birth of a New Star

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The Jellyfish Nebula

By Filed Under: Astronomy Images and Video

The Jellyfish Nebula (IC443) at upper left is a supernova remnant in the constellation Gemini. It lies adjacent to the emission nebula Sharpless 249 at lower right. Image credit: Jeff Johnson at jeffjastro.com/
The Jellyfish Nebula (IC443), upper left, is a supernova remnant in the constellation Gemini. It lies adjacent to the emission nebula Sharpless 249, a star forming region, at lower right in this image. Image credit: Jeff Johnson at jeffjastro.com

The Jellyfish Nebula, also called IC 443, is the sprawling remnant of a massive star that exploded as a supernova some 3,000 to 30,000 years ago in a gas-strewn patch of the Milky Way in the constellation Gemini. As you can see in the above image by Jeff Johnson, the shock wave from the explosion produced the particularly intricate lacework of nebulosity that makes up the Jellyfish. The nebula, which is about 5,000 light years away, is adjacent to a rich region of star formation called Sharpless 249. [Read more…] about The Jellyfish Nebula

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