dev20190805_20190805_M57stack20190805
The sky is too cloudy and full of moisture tonite for any astrophotography, so I went back to some old data I had. This is Messier 57, otherwise known as the Ring Nebula. It is about 2500 light years away and spans 1/10 the size of the full moon on the sky. Right now it's almost directly overhead at about 11pm, in the constellation Lyra, near the bright star Vega. I gathered the images for this back in 2015 with a Canon Rebel and 300mm prime lens, but my newer laptop processor does a much better job with the image stacking. This is what how our Sun will expire: not as a big flashy supernova, but after its red giant phase it will go through a series of pulsations and end as an ephemeral shell of expanding, diffuse and slightly glowing gas fluorescing because of the white-hot, Earth-sized chunk of carbon that was once its fusion core. (JPOD 217) #photoaday #pictureaday #messier57 #ringnebula #planetarynebula
dev20190805_20190805_M57stack20190805
The sky is too cloudy and full of moisture tonite for any astrophotography, so I went back to some old data I had. This is Messier 57, otherwise known as the Ring Nebula. It is about 2500 light years away and spans 1/10 the size of the full moon on the sky. Right now it's almost directly overhead at about 11pm, in the constellation Lyra, near the bright star Vega. I gathered the images for this back in 2015 with a Canon Rebel and 300mm prime lens, but my newer laptop processor does a much better job with the image stacking. This is what how our Sun will expire: not as a big flashy supernova, but after its red giant phase it will go through a series of pulsations and end as an ephemeral shell of expanding, diffuse and slightly glowing gas fluorescing because of the white-hot, Earth-sized chunk of carbon that was once its fusion core. (JPOD 217) #photoaday #pictureaday #messier57 #ringnebula #planetarynebula