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This luminous orb is the galaxy NGC 4621, better known as Messier 59. As this latter moniker indicates, the galaxy was listed in the famous catalogue of deep-sky objects compiled by French comet-hunter Charles Messier in 1779. However, German astronomer Johann Gottfried Koehler is credited with discovering the galaxy just days before Messier added it to his collection. Modern observations show that Messier 59 is an elliptical galaxy, one of the three main kinds of galaxies along with spirals and irregulars. Ellipticals tend to be the most evolved of the trio, full of old, red stars and exhibiting little or no new star formation. Messier 59, however, bucks this trend somewhat; the galaxy does show signs of star formation, with some newborn stars residing within a disk near the core. Located in the 2000-strong Virgo Cluster of galaxies within the constellation of Virgo (The Virgin), Messier 59 lies approximately 50 million light-years away from us. This image was taken by the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope’s Advanced Camera for Surveys.
For more information, please visit:
www.nasa.gov/image-feature/goddard/2019/hubble-sees-a-gal...
Text credit: ESA (European Space Agency)
Image credit: ESA/Hubble & NASA, P. Cote
Today’s rather aquatic-themed NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope image features the spiral galaxy Messier 77, also known as the Squid Galaxy, which sits 45 million light-years away in the constellation Cetus (The Whale).
The designation Messier 77 comes from the galaxy’s place in the famous catalog compiled by the French astronomer Charles Messier. Another French astronomer, Pierre Méchain, discovered the galaxy in 1780. Both Messier and Méchain were comet hunters who cataloged nebulous objects that could be mistaken for comets.
Messier, Méchain, and other astronomers of their time mistook the Squid Galaxy for either a spiral nebula or a star cluster. This mischaracterization isn’t surprising. More than a century would pass between the discovery of the Squid Galaxy and the realization that the ‘spiral nebulae’ scattered across the sky were not part of our galaxy but were in fact separate galaxies millions of light-years away. The Squid Galaxy’s appearance through a small telescope — an intensely bright center surrounded by a fuzzy cloud — closely resembles one or more stars wreathed in a nebula.
The name ‘Squid Galaxy’ is recent, and stems from the extended, filamentary structure that curls around the galaxy’s disk like the tentacles of a squid. The Squid Galaxy is a great example of how advances in technology and scientific understanding can completely change our perception of an astronomical object — and even what we call it!
Hubble previously released an image of M77 in 2013. This new image incorporates recent observations made with different filters and updated image processing techniques which allow astronomers to see the galaxy in more detail.
Text credit: European Space Agency
Image credit: ESA/Hubble & NASA, L. C. Ho, D. Thilker
For more information: science.nasa.gov/missions/hubble/hubble-spots-a-squid-in-...
M62 is known for being one of the most irregularly shaped globular clusters in our galaxy. This might be because it is one of the closest globular clusters to the center of our galaxy and is affected by galactic tidal forces, displacing many of the cluster’s stars toward the southeast.
M62 has an extremely dense core of 150,000 stars. In 2013, astronomers discovered a stellar-mass black hole in M62, one of the first to ever be found in a globular cluster. According to observations from NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory, M62 also contains a large number of X-ray binaries, which formed in close encounters between stars in the cluster.
French comet-hunter Charles Messier discovered M62 in 1771. The globular cluster is almost 12 billion years old. M62 has a magnitude of 6.6 and is located in the constellation Ophiuchus, approximately 22,200 light-years away from Earth. The cluster is located southeast of the bright star Antares and can be seen as a hazy patch of light with binoculars.
For more information, visit: www.nasa.gov/feature/goddard/2018/messier-62
Credit: NASA, ESA, STScI, and S. Anderson (University of Washington), and J. Chaname (Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile)
supernova near M60
Supernova2022hrs lying in Spiral Galaxy NGC 4647, 63 Mly.
It was discovered by Koichi Itagaki
Equipment
Main Scope:
152mm David H. Levy Comet Hunter at Focal length 730mm
Guiding Scope: 50mm. Focal 180mm
Mount: Skywatcher AZEQ-5 Pro Synscan Goto
Guide camera: ZWO ASI120mm
Main camera: ZWO ASI294MC -Pro cooled camera
Imaging Software: AsiAir
Accessories:
AsiAir Plus
Stacking Programs:
PixInsight
Adobe Lightroom
Photoshop for watermark
Details:
05/05/2022
Camera temp: -5°C
Gain: 120
Light: 20x90
Darks: 20
Total: 40 minutes
Taken From Bortle 4/5
Humidity: 60%
Name: Tameem Salem Al Tameemi
The Whirlpool Galaxy, also known as Messier 51a, M51a, and NGC 5194, is an interacting grand-design spiral galaxy with a Seyfert 2 active galactic nucleus. It lies in the constellation Canes Venatici, and was the first galaxy to be classified as a spiral galaxy. Its distance is estimated to be between 15 and 35 million light-years.
The galaxy and its companion, NGC 5195, are easily observed by amateur astronomers, and the two galaxies may be seen with binoculars. The Whirlpool Galaxy has been extensively observed by professional astronomers, who study it to understand galaxy structure (particularly structure associated with the spiral arms) and galaxy interactions.
What later became known as the Whirlpool Galaxy was discovered on October 13, 1773, by Charles Messier while hunting for objects that could confuse comet hunters, and was designated in Messier's catalogue as M51. Its companion galaxy, NGC 5195, was discovered in 1781 by Pierre Méchain, although it was not known whether it was interacting or merely another galaxy passing at a distance. In 1845, William Parsons, 3rd Earl of Rosse, employing a 72-inch (1.8 m) reflecting telescope at Birr Castle, Ireland, found the Whirlpool possessed a spiral structure, the first "nebula" to be known to have one. These "spiral nebulae" were not recognized as galaxies until Edwin Hubble was able to observe Cepheid variables in some of these spiral nebulae, which provided evidence that they were so far away that they must be entirely separate galaxies even though they are seen close together.
The advent of radio astronomy and subsequent radio images of M51 unequivocally demonstrated that the Whirlpool and its companion galaxy are indeed interacting. Sometimes the designation M51 is used to refer to the pair of galaxies, in which case the individual galaxies may be referred to as M51A (NGC 5194) and M51B (NGC 5195).
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This image is shot from my light polluted backyard using an Altair Astro Ritchey Chretien 10" telescope on an NEQ6 Pro mount. Camera used is an Atik 383L+ mono with Astrodon LRGB filters. Astro-Physics CCDT67 as a reducer. The image is composed of 5Hr RGB data for color and 6Hr of Luminance for detail.
As part of ESA/Hubble’s 35th anniversary celebrations, the European Space Agency (ESA) is sharing a new image series revisiting stunning, previously released Hubble targets with the addition of the latest Hubble data and new processing techniques.
New images of NGC 346 and the Sombrero Galaxy have already been published. Now, ESA/Hubble is revisiting the Eagle Nebula (originally published in 2005 as part of Hubble's 15th anniversary celebrations) with new image processing techniques.
Unfurling along the length of the image is a pillar of cold gas and dust that is 9.5 light-years tall. As enormous as this dusty pillar is, it’s just one small piece of the greater Eagle Nebula, also called Messier 16. The name Messier 16 comes from the French astronomer Charles Messier, a comet hunter who compiled a catalog of deep-sky objects that could be mistaken for comets.
The name Eagle Nebula was inspired by the nebula’s appearance. The edge of this shining nebula is shaped by dark clouds like this one, giving it the appearance of an eagle spreading its wings.
Not too far from the region pictured here are the famous Pillars of Creation, which Hubble photographed multiple times, with images released in 1995 and 2015.
The heart of the nebula, which is located beyond the edge of this image, is home to a cluster of young stars. These stars have excavated an immense cavity in the center of the nebula, shaping otherworldly pillars and globules of dusty gas. This particular feature extends like a pointing finger toward the center of the nebula and the rich young star cluster embedded there.
The Eagle Nebula is one of many nebulae in the Milky Way that are known for their sculpted, dusty clouds. Nebulae take on these fantastic shapes when exposed to powerful radiation and winds from infant stars. Regions with denser gas are more able to withstand the onslaught of radiation and stellar winds from young stars, and these dense areas remain as dusty sculptures like the starry pillar shown here.
The Hubble Space Telescope has been operating for over three decades and continues to make ground-breaking discoveries that shape our fundamental understanding of the universe. Hubble is a project of international cooperation between NASA and ESA (European Space Agency). NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, manages the telescope and mission operations. Lockheed Martin Space, based in Denver, also supports mission operations at Goddard. The Space Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore, which is operated by the Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy, conducts Hubble science operations for NASA.
Text credit: European Space Agency
Image credit: ESA/Hubble & NASA, K. Noll
For more information: science.nasa.gov/missions/hubble/hubble-spies-cosmic-pill...
The Whirlpool Galaxy, also known as Messier 51a (M51a) or NGC 5194, is an interacting grand-design spiral galaxy with a Seyfert 2 active galactic nucleus. It lies in the constellation Canes Venatici, and was the first galaxy to be classified as a spiral galaxy. It is 7.22 megaparsecs (23.5 million light-years) away and 23.58 kiloparsecs (76,900 ly) in diameter.
The galaxy and its companion, NGC 5195, are easily observed by amateur astronomers, and the two galaxies may be seen with binoculars. The Whirlpool Galaxy has been extensively observed by professional astronomers, who study it and its pair with NGC 5195 to understand galaxy structure (particularly structure associated with the spiral arms) and galaxy interactions. Its pair with NGC 5195 is among the most famous and relatively close interacting systems, and thus is a favorite subject of galaxy interaction models
What later became known as the Whirlpool Galaxy was discovered on October 13, 1773, by Charles Messier while hunting for objects that could confuse comet hunters, and was designated in Messier's catalogue as M51. William Parsons, 3rd Earl of Rosse, employing a 72-inch (1.8 m) reflecting telescope at Birr Castle, Ireland, found that the Whirlpool possessed a spiral structure, the first "nebula" to be known to have one. These "spiral nebulae" were not recognized as galaxies until Edwin Hubble was able to observe Cepheid variables in some of these spiral nebulae, which provided evidence that they were so far away that they must be entirely separate galaxies.
The advent of radio astronomy and subsequent radio images of M51 unequivocally demonstrated that the Whirlpool and its companion galaxy are indeed interacting. Sometimes the designation M51 is used to refer to the pair of galaxies, in which case the individual galaxies may be referred to as M51a (NGC 5194) and M51b (NGC 5195).
Reworked version.
Equipment: SkyWatcher NEQ6Pro, GSO Newton astrograph 200/800, GSO 2" coma corrector, QHY 8L-C, SVbony UV/IR cut, Optolong L-eNhance filter, FocusDream focuser, guiding QHY5L-II-C, SVbony guidescope 240mm.
Software: NINA, Astro pixel processor, GraXpert, Pixinsight, Adobe photoshop
203x180 sec. Lights gain15, offset113 at -10°C, 38x300 sec. Lights gain15, offset113 at -10°C via Optolong L-eNhance, master bias, 150 flats, master darks, master darkflats
4.3. until 12.4.2024
Belá nad Cirochou, Slovakia, bortle 4
The Whirlpool Galaxy, also known as Messier 51a, M51a, and NGC 5194, is an interacting grand-design spiral galaxy with a Seyfert 2 active galactic nucleus. It lies in the constellation Canes Venatici, and was the first galaxy to be classified as a spiral galaxy. Its distance is 31 million light-years away from Earth.
What later became known as the Whirlpool Galaxy was discovered on October 13, 1773, by Charles Messier while hunting for objects that could confuse comet hunters, and was designated in Messier's catalogue as M51. Its companion galaxy, NGC 5195, was discovered in 1781 by Pierre Méchain, although it was not known whether it was interacting or merely another galaxy passing at a distance. In 1845, William Parsons, 3rd Earl of Rosse, employing a 72-inch (1.8 m) reflecting telescope at Birr Castle, Ireland, found that the Whirlpool possessed a spiral structure, the first "nebula" to be known to have one. These "spiral nebulae" were not recognized as galaxies until Edwin Hubble was able to observe Cepheid variables in some of these spiral nebulae, which provided evidence that they were so far away that they must be entirely separate galaxies.
The advent of radio astronomy and subsequent radio images of M51 unequivocally demonstrated that the Whirlpool and its companion galaxy are indeed interacting. Sometimes the designation M51 is used to refer to the pair of galaxies, in which case the individual galaxies may be referred to as M51a (NGC 5194) and M51b (NGC 5195). (en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whirlpool_Galaxy)
43 x 120s frames - 1h 26m total exposure
ZWO ASI533MC Pro colour camera - Gain 100, cooled to -10˚C
Skywatcher 72ED
Skywatcher Az-Gti and wedge (EQ mode firmware upgrade), Skywatcher field flattener
ZWO ASIAir Pro
ZWO EAF
ZWO ASI 120mm mini mono
ZWO mini guide scope.
Comet Encke on Oct 8, 2013. 30×120 sec @ ISO 1600, TV-85 at F/5.6, Canon T3 (modified.)
It is somewhat unusual to have 3 relatively bright comets all in the morning sky at the same time. This one, I think, is the brightest and the other two, Comet Lovejoy and Comet ISON, are close behind. Anyway, I managed to get data on all three comet in two mornings of imaging. Its a comet hunter’s dream come true!
The Messier list was the first modern compilation of deep sky objects. The list compiled in the 1700s by Charles Messier of France. Originally the list contained 45 objects and was published by Messier with an expanded collection of 103. Oddly, it is a list of objects he wasn't interested in. Messier was tasked to hunt for comets and while searching discovered numerous comet-like faint fuzzies, including what we know now are various nebulae, star clusters and galaxies.
He recorded their positions and numbered them in order of discovery, so other comet hunters would not waste time on them again. Using Messier's notes, later astronomers added to the original published list. Numbered M1 ( Crab Nebula ) to M110, these deep sky objects (DSO) represent some of the best of their kind viewable from Earth and are a favorite of amateur astronomers using small telescopes ( almost any modern telescope is better than the one Messier used).
For more see
www.youtube.com/watch?v=B0nq7OD1rVM&nohtml5=False
“If you wish to make an apple pie from scratch, you must first invent the universe.”
― Carl Sagan
La pequeña cúpula guarda el sueño de cualquier persona que le gusta la astronomía observacional, un telescopio que fue encargado en 1906 a la conocida casa Carl Zeiss de Jena, Alemania. El encantador buscador de cometas Carl Zeiss, con el que Delavan realizo observaciones de los cometas de 1913. Posee un objetivo refractor de 20cm de diámetro y una distancia focal de 138 cm (f/6.9), que cuenta con un dispositivo rotatorio que le permite utilizar 3 oculares alternativamente y su montura ecuatorial, lo mas lindo de esta pieza de arte es una rueda de mano al lado de la silla, está conexión con la cúpula por medio de un cable, permite al observador dar vuelta a la cúpula sin dejar su posicion.
Hace mas de 100 años los cometas "Delavan" fueron descubiertos con este telescopio
El Cazador de cometas de la Facultad de Ciencias Astronómicas y Geofísicas
Universidad Nacional de La Plata
*****
The small dome keeps the dream of anyone who loves the observational astronomy, a telescope which was commissioned in 1906 to the house known as Carl Zeiss Jena, Germany. The lovely Carl Zeiss comet hunter team which conducted Delavan observations of comets 1913. Has a 20cm refractor lens diameter and a focal length of 138 cm (f/6.9), with a rotary device that allows you to use 3 eye pieces alternately and an equatorial mount, the most beautiful part of this piece of art is a hand wheel chair really that is connected to the dome via a cable, allows the viewer to turn the dome without leaving its position.
Over 100 years ago Comets "Delavan" were discovered with this telescope
The comet hunter from Facultad de Ciencias Astronómicas y Geofísicas
Universidad Nacional de La Plata
9 image panorama, had to work with some contrast of the sky due to light pollution, I had a lot of hard time to display some light coming from the milky way!
Edited European Southern Observatory image of the edge of NGC 3628.
Original caption: NGC 3628 is a spiral galaxy and a member of a small, but conspicuous group of galaxies located about 35 million light-years away, toward the constellation of Leo (the Lion). The other distinguished members of this family, known collectively as the Leo Triplet, are two well-known prominent spiral galaxies, Messier 65 and Messier 66 (not seen on the image), which were both discovered in 1780 by famous French comet hunter Charles Messier. NGC 3628 is the faintest of the trio and escaped Messier’s observations with his rather small telescope. It was discovered and catalogued by William Herschel only four years later. NGC 3628 hides its spiral structure because it is seen perfectly edge-on, exactly as we observe the Milky Way on a clear night. Its most distinctive feature is a dark band of dust that lies across the plane of the disc and which is visibly distorted outwards, as a consequence of the gravitational interaction between NGC 3628 and its bullying companions. This boxy or “peanut-shaped” bulge, seen as a faint X-shape, is formed mainly of young stars and gas and dust, which create the bulge away from the plane of the rest of the galaxy through their powerful motions. Because of its appearance, NGC 3628 was catalogued as Arp 317 in the Atlas of Peculiar Galaxies, published in 1966, which aimed to characterise a large sample of odd objects that fell outside the standard Hubble classification, to aid understanding of how galaxies evolve. The depth of the image reveals a myriad of galaxies of different shapes and colours, some of which lie much further away than NGC 3628. Particularly noticeable is the fuzzy blob just in the centre of the image, which is a diffuse satellite galaxy. A number of globular clusters can be seen as fuzzy reddish spots in the halo of the galaxy. Also visible as bright spots near the lower edge of the image (the two blue star-like objects below the satellite galaxy) are two quasars, the central engines of distant and very energetic galaxies, billions of light-years away. This image has been taken with the FORS2 instrument, attached to one of the ESO Very Large Telescope’s Unit Telescopes. It is a combination of exposures taken through different filters (B, V and R), for a total exposure time of just below one hour. The field of view is about 7 arcminutes across, which is why this large galaxy does not fit into the image. Links Image of Messier 66
Andromeda Galaxy, Messier 31, is a spiral galaxy approximately 2.5 million light-years from Earth, will eventually collide with our galaxy, The Milky Way in 3.75 billion years.
Camera Modified Canon EOS 650D, 30/60/120 sub exposures , 2 hrs Combined.
Explore Scientific, David H Levy Comet Hunter 152mm Mak Newt main scope, Skywatcher 80mm guide scope, Skywatcher NEQ6PRO mount, Moravian Auto guider G0-0300
Software:-
Maxim DL5, PS5, Gradient Exterminator, Noel Carboni's Actions. — at Harrold, Bedfordshire, UK.
Tonight (September 9, 2008) , the symposium that I'm attending in Tucson, Arizona had an outdoor dinner titled "Stars and Steaks". The guest speaker was David Levy, amateur astronomer and comet hunter, best known for his 1993 co-discovery of the comet Shoemaker-Levy 9 with Carolyn and Eugene Shoemaker. This comet is best known for its spectacular crash into Jupiter.
He spoke eloquently about his love of astronomy, comets and the moon. Coincidentally, Jupiter was visible very near the moon tonight. It was really cool to listen to Mr. Levy while enjoying the moon, Jupiter, and the stars on a beautiful Arizona evening.
Taken with an S5 IS at full zoom with an Olympus TCON-17 1.7x teleconverter and 4x digital zoom, for a total focal length of 2937.6mm (35mm equivalent). Full frame, no crop.
Charles Messier’s famous list of deep sky objects has a few quirks. Messier 73 is one of them. When Messier viewed the four stars (above the label in the drawing) on October 4 & 5, 1780, he believed that he saw some faint nebulosity and thus assigned it as an object that could be confused for a comet (Messier was a comet hunter). We now know that there is no nebulosity at this location. His error can easily be blamed on the quality of the telescope he was using which blended the light of the close stars into a false nebula.
The four stars are not a gravitationally bound star-cluster or even a multiple-star system, just four stars of chance alignment. The best one could call it is an Asterism, but even that is being kind. Regardless of its true nature it is still on the Messier list and thus is viewed on a regular basis by amateur astronomers around the world. More surprising was that these four stars were assigned an NGC number (6994) even though by then they were aware of Messier’s error and that no nebulosity existed. I guess M73 is worth a drawing for historical reasons even though it is of no true astronomical importance.
To view additional astronomy drawings visit: www.orrastrodrawings.com
A 2 hrs combined exposure, 2 minute subs, test run of new scope and camera, forgot the camera was set binned @ 2x2.
Equipment:-
Explore Scientific, David H Levy Comet Hunter 152mm Mak Newt main scope, wide angle and flat field, Skywatcher 80mm guide scope, Skywatcher NEQ6PRO mount, Starlight Xpress Lodestar guide camera, Starlight Xpress SXVR M26C main imaging camera.
Software:-
Maxim DL5, PS5, Gradient exterminator.
Comet Hunter David H. Levy with M and others at Jarnac Observatory.
Vail Arizona USA 17 February 2007 . Location N 31.97671 W 110.71935
See updated version here
www.flickr.com/photos/30496606@N05/8143221094/in/set-7215...
Included in Set "Astro Photos (Observatories)"
www.flickr.com/photos/30496606@N05/sets/72157630443118152...
www.flickr.com/photos/30496606@N05/collections/7215763043...
www.flickr.com/photos/30496606@N05/collections/
Camera: Canon PowerShot S80, RPS / ZB / DPP
Cropped and compressed JPEG
Data: A.D.O.F. available on request
....... Gre
M51 galaxy, Explore Scientific152mm F/4.8 Maksutov Newton ("Comet Hunter"), Nikon D5500, 174 minutes exposure @ ISO100 (58x3 minutes subframes). Shot from my backyard observatory "Heaven's Gate" in Čakovec, Croatia.
Crab nebula, M1 or NGC 1952 is a remnant of supernova explosion observed by Chinese astronomers in 1054. After explosion it was so bright that it was visible in daylight for 23 days and as suffciently bright to read a book at night. In 2009 Japanese scientists studying ice layers on Antarctica found elevated nitrogen oxide levels in layer that corresponds do year 1054.
M1 nebula has currenly a diameter of 11 light years and expands at a rate of 1500km/s (or 0.5% of light speed). Its expansion can be observed by comparing old and new photographs. Its core contains a very strong, only 10km diameter pulsar that rotates 33 times per second and producing immense amounts of radiation from gamma rays to radio waves. M1 lies very close to the ecliptic, so it is relatively frequent for it to be obscured by Solar System bodies. Occluding object blocks part of the radiation. This fact was used to study sun's corona in 1950's and 1960's and more recently to assess thickness of Tytan's atmoshphere.
Charles Messier, an enthusiastic comet hunter, was very disappointed by frequently spotting hazy objects, that after closer examination, came out to be stationary, thus were not comets. He was so frustraced that he decided to create a catalog of objects to be avoided. In his catalogue Crab nebula was assigned as number 1.
Frames captured using iTeleskop.org project. Taken using photometric Sloan filter.
Mgławica Krab, M1 lub NGC 1952 jest pozostałością po supernowej obserwowanej przez chińskich astronomów w 1054 roku. Po eksplozji była na tyle jasna, że widać ją było w dzień przez 23 doby, natomiast w nocy można było przy jej świetle czytać książkę. W 2009 roku japońscy naukowcy w czasie badań odwiertów lodowych na Antarktyce odkryli podwyższony poziom tlenku azotu w warstwie lodu pochodzącej właśnie z roku 1054.
Mgławica ma obecnie średnicę około 11 lat świetlnych i rozszerza się z prędkością ok. 1500km/s, czyli 0.5% prędkości światła. Jej rozszerzanie można zaobserwować porównując stare i nowe fotografie. W jej wnętrzu znajduje się pulsar o średnicy ok 10km, wykonujący ok 33 obroty na sekundę emitujący silne promieniowanie od gamma do radiowych. M1 znajduje się bardzo blisko ekliptyki, więc często zdarza się, że obiekty Układu Słonecznego przechodzą na tle tej mgławicy. Przesłaniający obiekt blokuje część promieniowania. W ten sposób w latach 50. i 60. XXw badano koronę słoneczną, a ostatnio oceniano grubość atmosfery Tytana.
Charles Messier, entuzjastyczny poszukiwacz komet, był bardzo rozczarowany tym, że co rusz natykał się na mgiełkowate obiekty, które niestety po dłuższych obserwacjacy okazywały się stacjonarne, więc nie były kometami. Był tym tak sfrustrowany, że postanowił stworzyć katalog obiektów, których należy unikać. W tym katalogu mgławica Krab zajmuje pozycję 1.
Materiał do zdjęcia pochodzi z projektu iTeleskop.org. Zdjęcia zrobione przy użyciu filtrów fotometrycznych Sloan.
90min combined 13 x 400sec sub exposures.
Equipment:-
Explore Scientific, David H Levy Comet Hunter 152mm Mak Newt ,Focal Ratio:f/4.8 main scope, Skywatcher 80mm guide scope, Skywatcher NEQ6PRO mount, Starlight Xpress Lodestar guide camera, Starlight Xpress SXVR M26C main imaging camera.
Software:-
Maxim DL5, PS5, Gradient exterminator.
Date 26/02/2012 00.55hrs
From the Universe Down to Earth Dept.: I took this (rather primitive) snapshot a day after the dramatic triple conjunction of the Moon, Venus, and Jupiter. The Moon has moved well to the upper left, though Venus and Jupiter remain next to each other. I took the picture right in front of a bus stop, and didn’t realize until later that I had caught the “magic” M1 bus. The M1 bus goes up Park Avenue to Harlem, but M1 is also astro-speak for the Crab Nebula. I thought I'd use this bus to demonstrate how vast astronomical distances really are.
The Crab, an expanding cloud of gas and dust that surrounds the remains of a supernova whose explosion was visible in Earth’s skies in 1,054 AD, was the first entry in pioneering comet hunter Charles Messier’s catalogue of “comet imposters,” objects that today we know as star clusters, nebulae, and galaxies (thus the designation M1, or Messier 1). I got to wondering, how long would it take for the M1 bus, traveling through space at its normal city-bus speed, to reach the celestial M1—the Crab Nebula (don’t ask me how—it’s a magic bus), as well as the other space objects visible in this picture. (The Crab itself is far too faint to be seen here, and is hard to see from the city even in a telescope due to its low surface brightness.)
The Moon’s mean distance from Earth is 384,000 km, or just short of 240,000 miles, so that at an average speed of 10 mph (16 kph), which is probably on the fast side for a city bus, factoring in traffic and stops, the M1 bus would pass the Moon, or at least cross its orbit, in about 24,000 hours, which is 1,000 days or 2.73 years. Venus, when closest to Earth, is 38.2 million km, or 23.7 million miles—it would take the bus close to 2.4 million hours, or 100,000 days to get there, about 274 years. Jupiter, at closest, is 588 million km, or 365 million miles from us. It would take some 4,170 years for our intrepid bus to pass Jupiter’s orbit.
Now, on to the Crab Nebula, and here we see the dramatic increase in distances when you leave our solar system for interstellar space. A light-year is a unit of distance, not of time—it represents the distance light travels in a year, about 5.9 trillion miles (9.5 trillion km). The Crab is some 6,300 light-years, or some 37 quadrillion miles away from Earth. For our magic bus to reach the celestial M1, the site of this ancient stellar explosion, going at its normal city-bus speed, it would take some 422 billion years, roughly 100 times the current age of the Earth, and about 100 times as long as the Sun is expected to survive. As a friend quipped, if you’re going to take the M1 bus to the Crab Nebula, you’d better pack a lot of sandwiches!
My guide to the nebulous, fuzzy things I see in the night... in the sky. A catalog compiled by French astronomer Charles Messier in 1771. He was an avid comet hunter, and these objects, always stationary in the constellations, were sometimes confused with comets, so he comprised this list to rule out misidentifying them... most logical... Mister Spock would be proud. I like this mug, whatever I drink from it, coffee, or whatever, or a combination of both, taste out of this world... Ha!
Comet Hunter David H. Levy with M and others at Jarnac Observatory.
Night photo "reprocessed and uploaded 31 October 2012"
Location N 31.97671 W 110.71935
Vail Arizona USA 17 February 2007
Included in Set "Astro Photos (Observatories)"
Camera: Canon PowerShot S80 / PSE10 / RPS / ZB / DPP
Cropped and compressed JPEG
Data: A.D.O.F. available on request
....... Gre
M1 The Crab Nebula
w/ 8" Meade SCT LX-50 F/6.3
19 pictures (73 minutes) 9x120sec 9x300 sec 1x600sec iso 800
Photo taken 12/2/11
The Crab Nebula in Taurus is a supernova remnant about 6500 light years from earth. The supernova explosion was recorded by Chinese and Japanese astronomers in 1054 AD. It the first object of the Messier list, a catalog made by French astronomer/comet hunter Charles Messier in 1771. The purpose of the catalog was to list objects which were "not comets".
Edited ESO image of the Andromeda Galaxy in its starry context.
Original caption: This famous spiral galaxy in the constellation of Andromeda is located approximately 2.5 million light-years away from us. Under a perfectly clear and dark sky, it can just be visible to the unaided eye. The Andromeda Galaxy is the largest member of the Local Group of galaxies, with one million million stars contained within a 220,000 light-year-wide disc, greatly exceeding the number of stars in our Milky Way. It is the nearest spiral galaxy to our own and has become the most studied âexternalâ galaxy so far. On 19 August 1885, the only recorded supernova in the Andromeda Galaxy took place when a star, now known as S Andromedae, destroyed itself in a convulsive explosion. About 14 dwarf galaxies orbit Andromeda, making it a very busy neighbourhood. The Andromeda Galaxy is approaching our Milky Way at the speed of about 400,000 kilometres per hour, and in about 2â3 billion years, the galaxies will pass through one another, although gravitational interactions will alter the appearance of both galaxies dramatically. The astronomer Edwin Hubble was the first to find Cepheid variable stars on astronomical photos of the Andromeda Galaxy, which enabled him to measure the distance to the galaxy. His measurements demonstrated that the Andromeda Galaxy was not a cluster of stars and gas within our Milky Way, but an entirely separate galaxy located at a significant distance from our own. The Persian astronomer Abd al-Rahman al-Sufi first mentioned the Andromeda Galaxy in AD 964 in his Book of Fixed Stars, describing it as a âsmall cloudâ. Charles Messier, the famous French comet hunter, recorded the Andromeda Galaxy as object number 31 in his famous catalogue in 1764. It is also entry number 224 in the New General Catalogue (NGC 224). A curious fact is that the brightest of the globular clusters â dense spherical star groupings â in the Andromeda Galaxy outshines the Milky Wayâs own most luminous globular cluster, Omega Centauri.
Was tempted to slice off the right side but I'm going to let this stand as is. In camera sepia, contrast and sharpness bumps. Taken prime focus at 800mm with the Comet Hunter. Still working out alignment on the Celestron mount, I'm left only with moon shots for the interim. What I really need is a permanent installation. This is a real space photo. Not light art.
Edited Hubble Space Telescope image of the interstellar comet 2I/Borisov.
Original caption: Astronomers using NASA's Hubble Space Telescope have found that the interstellar comet 2I/Borisov is providing the first glimpse of another star system's planetary building blocks.
The comet's unusual abundance of carbon monoxide is largely unlike comets belonging to our solar system. Borisov is the first known comet to originate from a different star system than our own. Researchers say its unusual composition points to a likely birthplace of a circumstellar disk around a cool red dwarf class of star. These observations are the first opportunity ever to sample the chemistry of the material in such a primordial disk around another star.
Comets are condensed samples of gas, ice, and dust that form swirling in the disk around a star during the birth of its planets. Studying comets is important because astronomers are still trying to understand the role they play in the buildup of planets. They can also redistribute organic material among young planets, and may have brought water to the early Earth. These activities are likely happening in other planetary systems, as demonstrated by Borisov's makeup.
"With an interstellar comet passing through our own solar system, it's like we get a sample of a planet orbiting another star showing up in our own back yard," said John Noonan of the Lunar and Planetary Laboratory at the University of Arizona, Tucson, who is a member of the Hubble research team led by Dennis Bodewits of Auburn University in Alabama.
The team used Hubble's unique ultraviolet sensitivity to spectroscopically detect carbon monoxide gas escaping from comet Borisov's solid comet nucleus. Hubble’s Cosmic Origins Spectrograph observed the comet on four separate occasions, from Dec. 11, 2019 to Jan. 13, 2020, which allowed the researchers to see the object's chemical composition change quickly, as different ice mixtures, including carbon monoxide, oxygen, and water, sublimated under the warmth of the Sun.
The Hubble astronomers were surprised to find that the interstellar comet's coma, the gas cloud surrounding the nucleus, contains a high amount of carbon monoxide gas, at least 150% more abundant than water vapor. This amount is more than three times higher than the previously measured quantity for any comet entering the inner solar system. The water measurement was made by NASA's Neil Gehrels-Swift satellite, whose observations were conducted in tandem with the Hubble study.
Carbon monoxide ice is very volatile. It doesn't take much sunlight to heat the ice and convert it to gas that escapes from a comet's nucleus. For carbon monoxide, this activity occurs very far from the Sun, about 11 billion miles away, more than twice the distance of Pluto at its farthest point from the Sun. In contrast, water remains in its icy form until about 200 million miles from the Sun, the approximate distance of the inner edge of the solar system.
However, for comet Borisov, the Hubble measurements suggest that some carbon monoxide ice was locked inside the comet's nucleus, revealed only when the Sun's heat stripped away layers of water ice. "The amount of carbon monoxide did not drop as expected as the comet receded from the Sun. This means that we are seeing the primitive layers of the comet, which really reflect what this object is made of," Bodewits explained. "Because of the abundance of carbon monoxide ice that survived so close to the Sun, we think that comet Borisov comes from a much colder place and from a very different debris disk around a star than our own."
Within 200 million miles of the Sun, the rates of water outgassing from a comet's surface are almost always much higher than those of carbon monoxide, the researchers said. Only about one or two known solar system comets have defied that rule. "What Hubble measured in comet Borisov is not a property of most solar system comets," Bodewits said. "That's why comet Borisov stood out for us because we reasoned that Borisov is likely a representative of the star system it comes from."
The researchers suggest that the comet may have been ejected from a disk of icy debris around a red dwarf star, the most common type of star in our Milky Way galaxy. Red dwarfs are fainter and less massive than the Sun. Their circumstellar disks, therefore, may be much colder than our solar system. "These stars have exactly the low temperatures and luminosities where a comet could form with the type of composition found in comet Borisov," Noonan said.
A large Jupiter-sized planet may have kicked the comet out of the alien system. The researchers said that many red dwarfs have large planets orbiting in a region far enough from their host star where carbon monoxide exists in its icy form. "If a Jupiter-sized planet migrates inward, it could kick out a lot of these comets," Bodewits said.
Comet Borisov was spotted on Aug. 30, 2019, by comet hunter Gennady Borisov in Crimea. The vagabond comet resembles other solar system comets, but astronomers determined its interstellar origins based on its orbital path. Since its discovery, a slew of telescopes, including Hubble, have observed the comet as it traveled through the solar system and swung past the Sun. It will eventually leave the solar system and continue its journey through space.
Comet Borisov is the first bonafide interstellar comet to visit the solar system. The first known vagabond visitor was an object called 1I/`Oumuamua, which was discovered in 2017 as it was traveling away from the Sun. Unlike a normal comet, `Oumuamua did not have a visible coma of escaping gas and dust around it, so astronomers could not use spectroscopy to sample its chemical content to characterize it.
Astronomers expect to find more of these wandering comets from outside the solar system with current and future telescopes that scan the entire sky.
The team's results will appear ??? in the journal Nature Astronomy.
Edited Hubble Space Telescope image of the interstellar comet 2I/Borisov. Color/processing variant.
Original caption: Astronomers using NASA's Hubble Space Telescope have found that the interstellar comet 2I/Borisov is providing the first glimpse of another star system's planetary building blocks.
The comet's unusual abundance of carbon monoxide is largely unlike comets belonging to our solar system. Borisov is the first known comet to originate from a different star system than our own. Researchers say its unusual composition points to a likely birthplace of a circumstellar disk around a cool red dwarf class of star. These observations are the first opportunity ever to sample the chemistry of the material in such a primordial disk around another star.
Comets are condensed samples of gas, ice, and dust that form swirling in the disk around a star during the birth of its planets. Studying comets is important because astronomers are still trying to understand the role they play in the buildup of planets. They can also redistribute organic material among young planets, and may have brought water to the early Earth. These activities are likely happening in other planetary systems, as demonstrated by Borisov's makeup.
"With an interstellar comet passing through our own solar system, it's like we get a sample of a planet orbiting another star showing up in our own back yard," said John Noonan of the Lunar and Planetary Laboratory at the University of Arizona, Tucson, who is a member of the Hubble research team led by Dennis Bodewits of Auburn University in Alabama.
The team used Hubble's unique ultraviolet sensitivity to spectroscopically detect carbon monoxide gas escaping from comet Borisov's solid comet nucleus. Hubble’s Cosmic Origins Spectrograph observed the comet on four separate occasions, from Dec. 11, 2019 to Jan. 13, 2020, which allowed the researchers to see the object's chemical composition change quickly, as different ice mixtures, including carbon monoxide, oxygen, and water, sublimated under the warmth of the Sun.
The Hubble astronomers were surprised to find that the interstellar comet's coma, the gas cloud surrounding the nucleus, contains a high amount of carbon monoxide gas, at least 150% more abundant than water vapor. This amount is more than three times higher than the previously measured quantity for any comet entering the inner solar system. The water measurement was made by NASA's Neil Gehrels-Swift satellite, whose observations were conducted in tandem with the Hubble study.
Carbon monoxide ice is very volatile. It doesn't take much sunlight to heat the ice and convert it to gas that escapes from a comet's nucleus. For carbon monoxide, this activity occurs very far from the Sun, about 11 billion miles away, more than twice the distance of Pluto at its farthest point from the Sun. In contrast, water remains in its icy form until about 200 million miles from the Sun, the approximate distance of the inner edge of the solar system.
However, for comet Borisov, the Hubble measurements suggest that some carbon monoxide ice was locked inside the comet's nucleus, revealed only when the Sun's heat stripped away layers of water ice. "The amount of carbon monoxide did not drop as expected as the comet receded from the Sun. This means that we are seeing the primitive layers of the comet, which really reflect what this object is made of," Bodewits explained. "Because of the abundance of carbon monoxide ice that survived so close to the Sun, we think that comet Borisov comes from a much colder place and from a very different debris disk around a star than our own."
Within 200 million miles of the Sun, the rates of water outgassing from a comet's surface are almost always much higher than those of carbon monoxide, the researchers said. Only about one or two known solar system comets have defied that rule. "What Hubble measured in comet Borisov is not a property of most solar system comets," Bodewits said. "That's why comet Borisov stood out for us because we reasoned that Borisov is likely a representative of the star system it comes from."
The researchers suggest that the comet may have been ejected from a disk of icy debris around a red dwarf star, the most common type of star in our Milky Way galaxy. Red dwarfs are fainter and less massive than the Sun. Their circumstellar disks, therefore, may be much colder than our solar system. "These stars have exactly the low temperatures and luminosities where a comet could form with the type of composition found in comet Borisov," Noonan said.
A large Jupiter-sized planet may have kicked the comet out of the alien system. The researchers said that many red dwarfs have large planets orbiting in a region far enough from their host star where carbon monoxide exists in its icy form. "If a Jupiter-sized planet migrates inward, it could kick out a lot of these comets," Bodewits said.
Comet Borisov was spotted on Aug. 30, 2019, by comet hunter Gennady Borisov in Crimea. The vagabond comet resembles other solar system comets, but astronomers determined its interstellar origins based on its orbital path. Since its discovery, a slew of telescopes, including Hubble, have observed the comet as it traveled through the solar system and swung past the Sun. It will eventually leave the solar system and continue its journey through space.
Comet Borisov is the first bonafide interstellar comet to visit the solar system. The first known vagabond visitor was an object called 1I/`Oumuamua, which was discovered in 2017 as it was traveling away from the Sun. Unlike a normal comet, `Oumuamua did not have a visible coma of escaping gas and dust around it, so astronomers could not use spectroscopy to sample its chemical content to characterize it.
Astronomers expect to find more of these wandering comets from outside the solar system with current and future telescopes that scan the entire sky.
The team's results will appear ??? in the journal Nature Astronomy.
Captured 19 May 2021, 00:16 hrs ET, Springfield, VA, USA. Bortle 8 skies, Mallincam DS10C camera, Celestron 8 inch SCT f/6.2, exposure 60 sec, gain 10, bin 1, stack of 10 light frames, dark and flat frames subtracted, no filter.
Clouds: clear
Seeing: ok
Transparency: ok
Moon phase: 41%
FOV: 47 x 36 arcmin before crop
Resolution: 0.8 arcsec/pixel
Orientation: Up is South
Apparent magnitude: +8.4
Apparent size: 11 x 7 arcmin
Appearance: Beautiful interacting spiral galaxies.
From Wikipedia:
The Whirlpool Galaxy, also known as Messier 51a, M51a, and NGC 5194, is an interacting grand-design spiral galaxy with a Seyfert 2 active galactic nucleus. It lies in the constellation Canes Venatici, and was the first galaxy to be classified as a spiral galaxy. Its distance is estimated to be 31 million light-years away from Earth.
The galaxy and its companion, NGC 5195, are easily observed by amateur astronomers, and the two galaxies may be seen with binoculars. The Whirlpool Galaxy has been extensively observed by professional astronomers, who study it to understand galaxy structure (particularly structure associated with the spiral arms) and galaxy interactions.
What later became known as the Whirlpool Galaxy was discovered on October 13, 1773, by Charles Messier while hunting for objects that could confuse comet hunters, and was designated in Messier's catalogue as M51. Its companion galaxy, NGC 5195, was discovered in 1781 by Pierre Méchain, although it was not known whether it was interacting or merely another galaxy passing at a distance. In 1845, William Parsons, 3rd Earl of Rosse, employing a 72-inch (1.8 m) reflecting telescope at Birr Castle, Ireland, found that the Whirlpool possessed a spiral structure, the first "nebula" to be known to have one. These "spiral nebulae" were not recognized as galaxies until Edwin Hubble was able to observe Cepheid variables in some of these spiral nebulae, which provided evidence that they were so far away that they must be entirely separate galaxies even though they are seen close together.
The advent of radio astronomy and subsequent radio images of M51 unequivocally demonstrated that the Whirlpool and its companion galaxy are indeed interacting. Sometimes the designation M51 is used to refer to the pair of galaxies, in which case the individual galaxies may be referred to as M51a (NGC 5194) and M51b (NGC 5195).
Deep in the constellation Canes Venatici, M51 is often found by finding the easternmost star of the Big Dipper, Eta Ursae Majoris, and going 3.5° southwest. Its declination is, rounded, +47°, making it a circumpolar (never setting) for observers above the 43rd parallel north; it reaches a high altitude throughout this hemisphere making it an accessible object from the early hours in November through to the end of May, after which observation is more coincidental in modest latitudes with the risen sun (due to the Sun approaching to and receding from its Right Ascension, specifically figuring in Gemini, just to the north).
M51 is visible through binoculars under dark sky conditions, and it can be resolved in detail with modern amateur telescopes. When seen through a 100 mm telescope the basic outlines of M51 (limited to 5×6') and its companion are visible. Under dark skies, and with a moderate eyepiece through a 150 mm telescope, M51's intrinsic spiral structure can be detected. With larger (>300 mm) instruments under dark sky conditions, the various spiral bands are apparent with HII regions visible, and M51 can be seen to be attached to M51B.
As is usual for galaxies, the true extent of its structure can only be gathered from inspecting photographs; long exposures reveal a large nebula extending beyond the visible circular appearance. In 1984, thanks to the high-speed detector—the so-called image-photon-counting- IPCS—system—developed jointly by the CNRS Laboratoire d'Astronomie Spatiald (L.A.S.- CNRS) and the Observatoire de Haute Provence (O.H.P.) along with the particularly nice seeing offered by the Canada-France-Hawaii-Telescope (C.F.H.T.) 3.60m Cassegrain focus at Mauna Kea summit in Hawaii, Hua et al. detected the double component of the very nucleus of the Whirlpool galaxy (article in Astrophysical Letters and Communications, 1987, vol. 25, pp. 187–204).
Whirlpool Galaxy lies 31 million light-years from Earth and has an estimated diameter of 76,000 light-years. Overall the galaxy is about 43% the size of the Milky Way. Its mass is estimated to be 160 billion solar masses, or around 10.3% of the mass of Milky Way Galaxy.
A black hole, once thought to be surrounded by a ring of dust, but now believed to be partially occluded by dust instead, exists at the heart of the spiral. A pair of ionization cones extend from the active galactic nucleus.
The pronounced spiral structure of the Whirlpool Galaxy is believed to be the result of the close interaction between it and its companion galaxy NGC 5195, which may have passed through the main disk of M51 about 500 to 600 million years ago. In this proposed scenario, NGC 5195 came from behind M51 through the disk towards the observer and made another disk crossing as recently as 50 to 100 million years ago until it is where we observe it to be now, slightly behind M51.
The central region of M51 appears to be undergoing a period of enhanced star formation. The present efficiency of star formation, defined as the ratio of mass of new stars to the mass of star-forming gas, is only ~1%, quite comparable to the global value for the Milky Way and other galaxies. It is estimated that the current high rate of star formation can last no more than another 100 million years or so.
Three supernovae have been observed in the Whirlpool Galaxy:
In 1994, SN 1994I was observed in the Whirlpool Galaxy. It was classified as type Ic, indicating that its progenitor star was very massive and had already shed much of its mass, and its brightness peaked at apparent magnitude 12.91.
In June 2005 the type II supernova SN 2005cs was observed in the Whirlpool Galaxy, peaking at apparent magnitude 14.
On 31 May 2011 a type II supernova was detected in the Whirlpool Galaxy, peaking at magnitude 12.1. This supernova, designated SN 2011dh, showed a spectrum much bluer than average, with P Cygni profiles, which indicate rapidly expanding material, in its hydrogen-Balmer lines. The progenitor was probably a yellow supergiant and not a red or blue supergiant, which are thought to be the most common supernova progenitors.
On 22 January 2019, a supernova impostor, designated AT2019abn, was discovered in Messier 51. The transient was later identified as a luminous red nova. The progenitor star was detected in archival Spitzer Space Telescope infrared images. No object could be seen at the position of the transient in archival Hubble images, indicating that the progenitor star was heavily obstructed by interstellar dust. 2019abn peaked at magnitude 17, reaching an intrinsic brightness of -14.9.
In September 2020, the detection of a candidate exoplanet, named M51-ULS-1b, orbiting the high-mass X-ray binary M51-ULS-1 in this galaxy was announced. If confirmed, it would be the first known instance of an extragalactic planet, a planet outside the Milky Way Galaxy. The planet was detected by eclipses of the X-ray source (XRS), which consists of a stellar remnant (either a neutron star or a black hole) and a massive star, likely a B-type supergiant. The planet would be slightly smaller than Saturn and orbit at a distance of some tens of astronomical units.
NGC 5195 (also known as Messier 51b or M51b) is a dwarf galaxy that is interacting with the Whirlpool Galaxy (also known as M51a or NGC 5194). Both galaxies are located approximately 25 million light-years away in the constellation Canes Venatici. Together, the two galaxies are one of the most widely studied interacting galaxy pairs.
The Whirlpool Galaxy is the brightest galaxy in the M51 Group, a small group of galaxies that also includes M63 (the Sunflower Galaxy), NGC 5023, and NGC 5229. This small group may actually be a subclump at the southeast end of a large, elongated group that includes the M101 Group and the NGC 5866 Group, although most group identification methods and catalogs identify the three groups as separate entities.
Edited Hubble Space Telescope image of the interstellar comet 2I/Borisov. Inverted grayscale variant.
Original caption: Astronomers using NASA's Hubble Space Telescope have found that the interstellar comet 2I/Borisov is providing the first glimpse of another star system's planetary building blocks.
The comet's unusual abundance of carbon monoxide is largely unlike comets belonging to our solar system. Borisov is the first known comet to originate from a different star system than our own. Researchers say its unusual composition points to a likely birthplace of a circumstellar disk around a cool red dwarf class of star. These observations are the first opportunity ever to sample the chemistry of the material in such a primordial disk around another star.
Comets are condensed samples of gas, ice, and dust that form swirling in the disk around a star during the birth of its planets. Studying comets is important because astronomers are still trying to understand the role they play in the buildup of planets. They can also redistribute organic material among young planets, and may have brought water to the early Earth. These activities are likely happening in other planetary systems, as demonstrated by Borisov's makeup.
"With an interstellar comet passing through our own solar system, it's like we get a sample of a planet orbiting another star showing up in our own back yard," said John Noonan of the Lunar and Planetary Laboratory at the University of Arizona, Tucson, who is a member of the Hubble research team led by Dennis Bodewits of Auburn University in Alabama.
The team used Hubble's unique ultraviolet sensitivity to spectroscopically detect carbon monoxide gas escaping from comet Borisov's solid comet nucleus. Hubble’s Cosmic Origins Spectrograph observed the comet on four separate occasions, from Dec. 11, 2019 to Jan. 13, 2020, which allowed the researchers to see the object's chemical composition change quickly, as different ice mixtures, including carbon monoxide, oxygen, and water, sublimated under the warmth of the Sun.
The Hubble astronomers were surprised to find that the interstellar comet's coma, the gas cloud surrounding the nucleus, contains a high amount of carbon monoxide gas, at least 150% more abundant than water vapor. This amount is more than three times higher than the previously measured quantity for any comet entering the inner solar system. The water measurement was made by NASA's Neil Gehrels-Swift satellite, whose observations were conducted in tandem with the Hubble study.
Carbon monoxide ice is very volatile. It doesn't take much sunlight to heat the ice and convert it to gas that escapes from a comet's nucleus. For carbon monoxide, this activity occurs very far from the Sun, about 11 billion miles away, more than twice the distance of Pluto at its farthest point from the Sun. In contrast, water remains in its icy form until about 200 million miles from the Sun, the approximate distance of the inner edge of the solar system.
However, for comet Borisov, the Hubble measurements suggest that some carbon monoxide ice was locked inside the comet's nucleus, revealed only when the Sun's heat stripped away layers of water ice. "The amount of carbon monoxide did not drop as expected as the comet receded from the Sun. This means that we are seeing the primitive layers of the comet, which really reflect what this object is made of," Bodewits explained. "Because of the abundance of carbon monoxide ice that survived so close to the Sun, we think that comet Borisov comes from a much colder place and from a very different debris disk around a star than our own."
Within 200 million miles of the Sun, the rates of water outgassing from a comet's surface are almost always much higher than those of carbon monoxide, the researchers said. Only about one or two known solar system comets have defied that rule. "What Hubble measured in comet Borisov is not a property of most solar system comets," Bodewits said. "That's why comet Borisov stood out for us because we reasoned that Borisov is likely a representative of the star system it comes from."
The researchers suggest that the comet may have been ejected from a disk of icy debris around a red dwarf star, the most common type of star in our Milky Way galaxy. Red dwarfs are fainter and less massive than the Sun. Their circumstellar disks, therefore, may be much colder than our solar system. "These stars have exactly the low temperatures and luminosities where a comet could form with the type of composition found in comet Borisov," Noonan said.
A large Jupiter-sized planet may have kicked the comet out of the alien system. The researchers said that many red dwarfs have large planets orbiting in a region far enough from their host star where carbon monoxide exists in its icy form. "If a Jupiter-sized planet migrates inward, it could kick out a lot of these comets," Bodewits said.
Comet Borisov was spotted on Aug. 30, 2019, by comet hunter Gennady Borisov in Crimea. The vagabond comet resembles other solar system comets, but astronomers determined its interstellar origins based on its orbital path. Since its discovery, a slew of telescopes, including Hubble, have observed the comet as it traveled through the solar system and swung past the Sun. It will eventually leave the solar system and continue its journey through space.
Comet Borisov is the first bonafide interstellar comet to visit the solar system. The first known vagabond visitor was an object called 1I/`Oumuamua, which was discovered in 2017 as it was traveling away from the Sun. Unlike a normal comet, `Oumuamua did not have a visible coma of escaping gas and dust around it, so astronomers could not use spectroscopy to sample its chemical content to characterize it.
Astronomers expect to find more of these wandering comets from outside the solar system with current and future telescopes that scan the entire sky.
The team's results will appear ??? in the journal Nature Astronomy.
Edited ESO image of NGC 3628, an edge-on galaxy and a member of the Leo Triplet.
Original caption: NGC 3628 is a spiral galaxy and a member of a small, but conspicuous group of galaxies located about 35 million light-years away, toward the constellation of Leo (the Lion). The other distinguished members of this family, known collectively as the Leo Triplet, are two well-known prominent spiral galaxies, Messier 65 and Messier 66 (not seen on the image), which were both discovered in 1780 by famous French comet hunter Charles Messier. NGC 3628 is the faintest of the trio and escaped Messier’s observations with his rather small telescope. It was discovered and catalogued by William Herschel only four years later. NGC 3628 hides its spiral structure because it is seen perfectly edge-on, exactly as we observe the Milky Way on a clear night. Its most distinctive feature is a dark band of dust that lies across the plane of the disc and which is visibly distorted outwards, as a consequence of the gravitational interaction between NGC 3628 and its bullying companions. This boxy or “peanut-shaped” bulge, seen as a faint X-shape, is formed mainly of young stars and gas and dust, which create the bulge away from the plane of the rest of the galaxy through their powerful motions. Because of its appearance, NGC 3628 was catalogued as Arp 317 in the Atlas of Peculiar Galaxies, published in 1966, which aimed to characterise a large sample of odd objects that fell outside the standard Hubble classification, to aid understanding of how galaxies evolve. The depth of the image reveals a myriad of galaxies of different shapes and colours, some of which lie much further away than NGC 3628. Particularly noticeable is the fuzzy blob just in the centre of the image, which is a diffuse satellite galaxy. A number of globular clusters can be seen as fuzzy reddish spots in the halo of the galaxy. Also visible as bright spots near the lower edge of the image (the two blue star-like objects below the satellite galaxy) are two quasars, the central engines of distant and very energetic galaxies, billions of light-years away. This image has been taken with the FORS2 instrument, attached to one of the ESO Very Large Telescope’s Unit Telescopes. It is a combination of exposures taken through different filters (B, V and R), for a total exposure time of just below one hour. The field of view is about 7 arcminutes across, which is why this large galaxy does not fit into the image. Links Image of Messier 66
Charles Messier (1730-1817) was a comet hunter. During his life time he was famous for finding new comets. Today however, he is known for his list of non-comet like objects. Messier kept a list of these objects that looked like comets but were not. His purpose for doing so was to ensure that he did not mistake one of these objects for a comet during future searches. The Messier list today is usually the first list of deep-sky objects observed by a new budding amateur astronomer. Most objects on his list are of astronomical interest, but a couple mysteries remain about the Messier list. Messier 40 is one of them. Was it truly a mistake Messier would have made? Is the double star Winnecke-4, something that Messier really thought might be mistaken for a comet? It is true, that Messier’s telescope was not of today’s standards, but these two stars have a large apparent separation of 52”. Even in my 1960s vintage 60mm achromatic refractor, Winnecke-4 looks like a double star and is not comet-like at all. We probably will never know, beyond a doubt, how this double star came to be M40. To add additional injury to M40, it turns out not to be a gravitational double star after all, but two stars widely separated in space, but just happen to be in the same line-of-sight from Earth.
Hydrogen Alpha False colour 2hrs comb 10 min subs, Binned 2x2.
Equipment:-
Explore Scientific, David H Levy Comet Hunter 152mm Mak Newt ,Focal Ratio:f/4.8 main scope, Skywatcher 80mm guide scope, Skywatcher NEQ6PRO mount, Starlight Xpress Lodestar guide camera, Starlight Xpress SXVR M26C main imaging camera with HA filter.
Software:-
Maxim DL5, PS5, Noel Carboni Actions
Date:25/03/2012
The Markarian Chain - The heart of the Virgo Cluster of Galaxies..I converted my image to B&W & included a Negative image for ease of seeing the fainter galaxies, with ID's. .Some are as faint as 18th magnitude, The Virgo Cluster is a cluster of galaxies whose center is 53.8 Million Light years away (16.5 Mpc) away in the constellation Virgo. .Comprising approximately 1300 (and possibly up to 2000) member galaxies, the cluster forms the heart of the larger Virgo Supercluster, of which the Local Group is an outlying member, which includes our own Milky Way & The Andromeda Galaxy..Markarian's Chain is a stretch of galaxies that forms part of the Virgo Cluster. It is called a chain because, when viewed from Earth, the galaxies lie along a smoothly curved line. It was named after the Armenian astrophysicist, B. E. Markarian, who discovered their common motion in the early 1960s. .Member galaxies include M84 (NGC 4374), M86 (NGC 4406), NGC 4477, NGC 4473, NGC 4461, NGC 4458, NGC 4438 and NGC 4435 and many other PGC & IC Galaxies. Sorry but I did not have time to label them all, but Zoom in to see some of the smaller fainter ones!.It is located at RA 12h 27m and Dec +13° 10'..At least seven galaxies in the chain appear to move coherently, although others appear to be superposed by chance..What does M, NGC, IC, & PGC refer to you ask??.M - Messier Object Number.The Messier objects are a set of 110 astronomical objects first listed by French astronomer Charles Messier in 1771. Messier was a comet hunter, and was frustrated by objects which resembled but were not comets, so he compiled a list of them..NGC- New General Catalog.The New General Catalogue of Nebulae and Clusters of Stars (abbreviated as NGC) is a well-known catalogue of deep-sky .objects compiled by John Louis Emil Dreyer in 1888 as a new version of John Herschel's General Catalogue of Nebulae and Clusters of Stars..The NGC contains 7,840 objects, known as the NGC objects. It is one of the largest comprehensive catalogues, as it includes all types of deep space objects and is not confined to, for example, galaxies. .IC - Index Catalog.Dreyer also published two supplements to the NGC in 1895 and 1908, .known as the Index Catalogues, describing a further 5,386 astronomical objects..PGC - Principal Galaxies.The Catalogue of Principal Galaxies (PGC) is an astronomical catalog published in 1989 that lists B1950 and J2000.equatorial coordinates and cross-identifications for 73,197 galaxies. .back in April..2016.While waiting for the Comet to rise....I captured this 72 minute exposure(4 min subs x 18) using a Baader Modified Canon Rebel Xsi, & 5.5 inch F5 Newt. Reflector at my Observatories in Yellow Springs, Ohio on 04-12-2016. The Line in the image is a satellite trail as it passed through the Field of View, this happens a lot in long exposures! .Best Regards,.John Chumack.www.galacticimages.com..
Taken on the night of 9/23/11. Using Nex5 DSLR/ES Comet Hunter. Levels and Curves adjusted in Photoshop. **Also had CLS CCD Filter for light pollution and better contrast.
Globular cluster M3, Explore Scientific "Comet Hunter" MN-152, F/4.8, ASI178MC, exposure 120 x 5 sec.
Deep Impact is a NASA space probe launched on January 12, 2005
ISON is the 4th comet observed by Deep Impact. (or so they say) (deepimpact.jpl.nasa.gov) about: solarsystem.nasa.gov/deepimpact/faq.cfm
However. NASA also said that Deep Impact's mission has ended www.nasa.gov/press/2013/september/nasas-deep-space-comet-...
NASA Near Earth Object Program
Deep Impact & Comet C/2012 S1 (ISON) neo.jpl.nasa.gov/orbits/epoxi1.html
NASA's STEREO-A, STEREO-B, SOHO stereo.gsfc.nasa.gov/ and the Solar Dynamics Observatory sdo.gsfc.nasa.gov/ provide continuous views all the way to perihelion (closest approach to the sun) on Nov. 28
1 AU = 1 Astronomical Unit = 149,597,871 kilometers
SDO Views Comet ISON cometison.gsfc.nasa.gov/
secchi.nrl.navy.mil/index.php?p=js_secchi_day_png28th.
Interview NOAA's Space Weather Prediction Center D A Biesecker www.youtube.com/watch?v=GjjSvRyPAvU
Thank You Monty!
Scope weighs only five pounds - Mirror diameter = 5.5" f/3.6.
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Will make great finder
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Original diagonal was too large (big blockage in exit pupil), eyepiece tube (missing) was too long. Celestron goofed by not consulting me on this one. See the 2.1" secondary obstruction at: www.cloudynights.com/images/cometcatcher_files/image004.jpg
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My profession = Scope sanity check engineer, fees moderate.
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IMG_0414Cr
Great Orion Nebulae is located in the sword part of the constellation "Orion" still visible till midnight in the Maldives.
Its approximate distance to earth is 1500 light years and is a active stellar nursery. Famous Comet hunter Charles Messier cataloged it in 1764 as M42.
Photo taken with a Sigma 70-300mm
8 sec exposure.
F4.8
NJ Transit commuter rail train led by a Comet V cab car entering the East River tunnel, viewed from the Hunters Point Avenue bridge in Queens. Will definitely have to come back to this location at some point. From the first day of photography with my new Nikon D90. (2011-12-27)
Six comet discoverers at the International Workshop on Cometary Astronomy (IWCA III) in Paris in 2004. (l-r) Milos Tichy, Sebastian Hoenig, Michel Meunier, Patrick Stonehouse, Shigeki Murakami, and Doug Snyder. Snyder and Murakami co-discovered Comet Snyder-Murakami (C/2002 E2). All the discoverers have one comet discovery to their credit, except for Murakami, who recently co-discovered a second comet, this time with renowned comet hunter Kaoru Ikeya, a rare visual discovery in a time when the automated sky surveys searching for near-Earth objects find most comets.
The Pleiades star cluster - also called the "Seven Sisters" through a telescope on a warm October evening.
This is also called "M45", as it is the 45th object in the catalog of Charles Messier, a 18th Century comet hunter.
This cluster is approximately 440 light years from Earth, in the constellation Taurus.