The Eye of Sauron

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.

A wider shot of the Eagle Nebula, with the famous “pillars of creation” in its center.

Try saying that three times fast! Fortunately, the “Silver Sliver Galaxy” has a formal name that’s easier to pronounce: NGC 891. It’s about 30 million light-years away, and is thought to be very similar to what our own Milky Way galaxy would look like when viewed edge-on. Explore the wider-field image; click on it for…

About 10 million light-years away within the constellation Camelopardalis lies NGC2403. It doesn’t get much love, but it was really an oversight in the famous Messier catalog that defines the most popular deep-sky objects. So let’s give it a little attention, and reflect on the fact that the light we’re seeing from this galaxy started…

Well, it was certainly born of fire. This is planetary nebula Abell 39, one of the largest spheres in the galaxy… it’s 2.6 light-years across! It really is that color blue. You’re seeing ionized Oxygen gas blown off by the dying star in its center. Look closely for the distant galaxies in the background, including…

Like the Bubble Nebula, and Thor’s Helmet, this is formed by the fast stellar wind of the extremely hot star at its heart – which interacts in complex ways from the wind left over from when this star was a red giant. This is roughly 5,000 light-years away. These images were taken over the span…