A Spooky Knot in the Veil Nebula

Had a few hours of clear skies last night, and captured a globular cluster I hadn’t imaged before: M92. It’s a pretty one, and I’m surprised it’s not more popular. It’s in the constellation Hercules, and I suspect it just gets overshadowed by its even more spectacular neighbor, M13. Globular clusters were enshrouded in mystery…

There are two different clusters of galaxies in this image – the large galaxy you see is NGC 7331, part of the “Deer Lick Galaxy Group.” The smaller galaxies you see surrounding it (sometimes called “The Fleas”) are actually about ten times further away than NGC 7331. In the corner, you’ll see “Stephan’s Quintet,” a…

You’re looking at about 500,000 stars, balled up just outside of our galaxy. They are ancient; about 8 billion years old.

Part of our Local Group of galaxies, the Triangulum Galaxy (M33) is about 3 million light years away and the most distant object visible to the naked eye under dark skies.

Hoag’s Object is the weirdest galaxy I know of; it is a “ring galaxy” – a very rare galaxy type that’s just a galactic core of stars, surrounded by a ring of stars that’s seemingly disconnected from its core. This galaxy has always captured my imagination. Just look at this image from the Hubble Space…

This is a small part of a larger nebula called the “Baby Nebula” (also known as the Soul Nebula) in the constellation Cassiopeia. If you see a baby in the larger nebula this is part of, this image would be of the baby’s bottom 🙂 There is a ton of star formation going on in…