Here’s another galaxy with no nearby neighbors, and no catchy nicknames either: NGC 3344. It’s about 22.5 million light-years away within the constellation Leo Minor. Although it doesn’t get the love it deserves, it’s a glorious face-on barred spiral galaxy that’s about half the size of our own Milky Way. Explore the space around it, and you’ll find many other galaxies that are much more distant.
This is IC443, commonly known as the “Jellyfish Nebula” for obvious reasons! IC443 is a supernova remnant about 5,000 light-years away. This is a false-color, narrowband image consisting of a total of 20 hours of exposure time.
This dim nebula in the constellation Perseus has no name, apart from its catalog numbers NGC 1491 and LBN 704. I think it deserves one. It reminds me of the Bubble nebula – if you look closely, you’ll see a “bubble” at center being created from the stellar wind of the hot star that is…
Our new home has clear views of the sky down to about 15 degrees from the horizon; which means some objects that are normally considered only visible from the Southern hemisphere just peek above our trees for a few hours. One such object is the galaxy Centaurus A; it’s an odd galaxy that looks like…
Sometimes called the “Cat’s Eye Galaxy,” this is M94 – about 16 million light years away in the constellation Canes Venatici. You can barely see its faint outer ring surrounding it here, as well as several very distant background galaxies. It’s notable for challenging our understanding of the universe – it appears to have very…
That twisted-up galaxy at the top is NGC 3718. We don’t actually know if it’s a spiral or a lenticular galaxy, because the galaxy below it, NGC 3729, appears to have warped it beyond recognition when it passed by it. Also look for the cluster of five more distant galaxies just to the right of…
Technically this nebula is called IC63, but its common name “The Ghost of Cassiopeia” seems much more timely, given Halloween is just around the corner! Imaged all night last night, mostly in true colors with some Hydrogen emissions added in to enhance it.
