Space Jellyfish!

Last weekend, I hosted an astrophotography workshop on lunar photography for our local astronomy club. Tonight the skies finally cleared, and I got to apply what was learned! Here’s our lunar neighbor, in hi-res glory.

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…

This galaxy is truly one of a kind, at least among that galaxies we have found. It’s a “polar ring galaxy,” probably the result of an unusual collision that left the core lenticular galaxy surrounded by the disk of another galaxy that it merged with. It’s a small, dim object, and just barely detectable from…

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…

This image contains a few things! At the bottom is the Cone Nebula, at the upper-right is the “Fox Fur Nebula”, and in the middle is the “Christmas Tree” star cluster… you have to flip the image upside down to see that one. It’s a gorgeous region of active star formation in the constellation Monoceros….

A lot of things have to come together for a good image of the planets. The air needs to be as still as possible, the planet you’re imaging needs to be as directly overhead as possible, and the planet itself should be as close to the Earth as possible. And then, all your equipment has…