As we enter summer and the Earth starts pointing us back into the plane of the Milky Way and its many nebulas, we’re nearing the end of globular cluster season. M5 seems a fitting one to end on this year; there’s nothing terribly remarkable about it, other than I think it’s pretty. It’s located about 24,500 light-years away, within the constellation Serpens.
The iconic Horsehead Nebula, near Orion’s belt. Shot in narrowband over two evenings.
This portion of the Veil Nebula, commonly called the “Witch’s Broom,” is part of a larger shell of gas known as the Cygnus Loop. It’s gases blown off from a supernova that exploded 10,000 to 20,000 years ago! The rich red and blue colors are real; this is not a false color image. Shot over…
This young star cluster inside the Heart Nebula is lighting up the clouds of gas from which it formed. 3 hours of narrowband exposure from my suburban driveway.
Formally IC1396, this cloud of interstellar gas and dust is thought to be an active site of new star formation. And with a little imagination, it kind of looks like an elephant’s trunk. There’s more to it than you see here, but I tried to get an interesting framing. From this angle we see a…
Central Florida wasn’t on the path of the “ring of fire” annular eclipse, but we did get about 60% coverage during the peak of our partial solar eclipse today! I was live-streaming the view at the peak, but managed to capture a quick image for myself shortly afterwards. Lots of good flares and prominences, and…
Hope to revisit this under better conditions in the future; but this came out OK considering a bright moon was out the night it was taken. The Pinwheel Galaxy (M101) is near the end of the handle of the Big Dipper in the sky, although physically it is tens of millions of light-years more distant.
