Category: Astronomy

Here we have several objects in the southern Milky Way, nestled between Sagittarius and Scorpius, as seen from the River Ridge Observatory Saturday night. In the center is the Pipe Nebula (or Barnard 67 after the astronomer who pioneered the study of these dark nebulae). It’s a tobacco pipe, or maybe something besides tobacco, and you can see the bowl and stem of it. You can see the dark nebulae tracing their way all over this. These are cold gas and dust that aren’t glowing but instead blocking the light from the stars behind them.Glowing red in the upper left is the Lagoon Nebula, one of the best star forming regions in our neck of the woods.This was made from 40 60 second images with a Canon 800D and 50mm lens at f/2. Cropped a little and processed in Photoshop.

Last Friday night/Saturday morning, I took some pictures of the Eagle Nebula (Messier 16) i n the constellation Serpens (the serpent). This was with my 11″ SCT & Hyperstar with my ZWO ASI294MC Pro. It needs more time, I only have 30 64 second images here, but I like how it turned out. Click the image for a close up.

According to Wikipedia, “The Eagle Nebula (catalogued as Messier 16 or M16, and as NGC 6611, and also known as the Star Queen Nebula and The Spire) is a young open cluster of stars in the constellation Serpens, discovered by Jean-Philippe de Cheseaux in 1745–46. Both the “Eagle” and the “Star Queen” refer to visual impressions of the dark silhouette near the center of the nebula, an area made famous as the “Pillars of Creation” imaged by the Hubble Space Telescope. The nebula contains several active star-forming gas and dust regions, including the aforementioned Pillars of Creation.”

It’s been a week since I shot this but on July 24/25, a hot dew laden and chigger ridden night, I shot M33 the Triangulum Galaxy with my C11, Hyperstar, and ZWO ASI 294MC Pro. This image was made from 30 individual 60 second frames. Stacked and processed with the Starizona Action Pack plus other techniques. The core might be a little overdone but I like it.

According to Wikipedia, “The Triangulum Galaxy is a spiral galaxy 2.73 million light-years (ly) from Earth in the constellation Triangulum. It is catalogued as Messier 33 or NGC 598. The Triangulum Galaxy is the third-largest member of the Local Group of galaxies, behind the Milky Way and the Andromeda Galaxy. It is one of the most distant permanent objects that can be viewed with the naked eye.”