![Ghost of Cassiopeia](https://boldly-going.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/ghost2.png)
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![Wizard Nebula](https://boldly-going.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/WizardHybrid-1-768x696.png)
Off to See the Wizard
There are a lot of stars in this picture; the gases of the Wizard Nebula (formally SH2-142) are the birthplace of those stars, and more are being created even now. It’s located about 7,200 light-years away, and is extremely dim – it took over 9 hours of exposure time to capture this image. Your ability…
![The galaxy M91](https://boldly-going.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/M91-crop-768x432.png)
The galaxy M91
Located 63 million light-years away in the constellation Coma Berenices, M91 is part of the Virgo cluster of galaxies – and if you zoom in and explore this image, you’ll find many other galaxies surrounding it, and also far in the distance beyond it.
![A bunch of obscure galaxies in Virgo (NGC5364 and friends)](https://boldly-going.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/04/NGC5364-annotated-768x881.png)
A bunch of obscure galaxies in Virgo (NGC5364 and friends)
There’s a big cluster of galaxies within Virgo; it’s just filthy with them. People usually image a different part of it, but I found another interesting area that’s often overlooked. The grand-design spiral at the bottom is NGC5364; it’s about 55 million light-years away. The annotated image identifies its buddies.
![Thor's Helmet](https://boldly-going.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/02/Thor-Proc-768x592.png)
Thor’s Helmet
This week’s target was Thor’s Helmet (NGC 2359), an emission nebula in Canis Major a rather distant 12,000 light-years away. It’s formed by a Wolf-Rayet star in its center, which is a crazy-hot star whose immense stellar wind is bunching up and ionizing the gases around it in these complex patterns. It’ll probably go supernova…
![The Iris Nebula](https://boldly-going.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/09/Iris-NoMag-768x603.png)
The Iris Nebula
Located about 1,300 light-years away, the Iris Nebula is a reflection nebula – unlike most of the nebulas on this site, it’s not made of ionized gases emitting light of their own. It’s just starlight reflecting off clouds of dust. Reflection nebula are harder to image in light-polluted skies, since the narrowband filters we use…
![The star next door.](https://boldly-going.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/09/Sun-Surface.png)
The star next door.
I just added a Lunt 40mm solar telescope to the arsenal here… figuring it out was challenging, but eventually I got it working! This ain’t bad for my very first solar image; still lots to learn though.