M104 is known as the “Sombrero Galaxy” due to its visual appearance – but a deep, long-exposure image reveals its true structure. It’s a lenticular galaxy about 30 million light-years away, about 30% the size of our own Milky Way galaxy.
NGC253 is most commonly known as the “Sculptor Galaxy,” because it’s found within the constellation Sculptor. You probably haven’t heard of Sculptor – that’s because it is considered a Southern-hemisphere constellation, and it’s only visible in the US from Southern states such as Florida. It’s also known as the “Silver Coin Galaxy.” It’s part of…
Within the constellation Corvus, two galaxies are close to merging together into one… leaving two tails behind from the original galaxies. About 45 million light-years away. Our own galaxy may suffer a similar fate, should it collide with the Andromeda Galaxy in the distant future.
This is a weird little cluster of galaxies – there are four in all, and each one is completely different. There’s a weird, S-shaped one that must have been messed up by its neighbors in the past, a somewhat normal-looking spiral galaxy, and elliptical, and another one that’s viewed edge-on. Galaxies that have interacted with…
As with any form of photography, getting a good shot is largely about being in the right place at the right time. When it comes to photographing the planets, sometimes that means getting up at a painful hour. Both Mars and Uranus are nearing “opposition” – the point where they are directly across from Earth…
A wider shot of the Eagle Nebula, with the famous “pillars of creation” in its center.
The Pelican Nebula frankly isn’t a very attractive object as a whole, but if you crop it down to its heart, there’s a lot of interesting stuff going on. Look for little puffs in the image, or areas with spikes coming out of them. Those are Herbig-Haro objects – stars that are still in the…
