Icelandic Aurora borealis
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The Heart and fleeing fish Nebulae lie some 7500 light years away from Earth and are located in the Perseus Arm of the Galaxy in the constellation Cassiopeia. This is an emission nebula showing glowing gas and darker dust lanes. The nebula is formed by plasma of ionized hydrogen and free electrons.
IC 1396A is the Elephant's Trunk nebula, located in the constellation Cepheus. The Elephant's Trunk Nebula is a concentration of interstellar gas and dust within the much larger ionized gas region IC 1396, at an estimated distance of about 2,500 light years.
At the heart of the nebula lies the open star cluster Trumpler 37, where several hot, young stars (less than 100,000 years) are thought to be forming. These stars emit copious amounts of hot plasma winds and energetic particles that ionize the gas in the nebula and causing it to glow with the characteristic red light of hydrogen atoms. The winds are also sculpting the nebula creating the central cavity, but also compressing the gas in dense regions and triggering a new generation of protostars, hidden inside the dust.
At the estimated distance of the nebula, the Elephant's Trunk is about 20 light-years long.
Thanks to all for your continuous support and kind comments. I wish to all my Flickr friends a happy and relaxing summer and looking forward for your beautiful photos and stories!
Technical Info:
Telescope: Orion EON 80ED refractor, F = 500 mm, f/6.25
Camera: Canon EOS 20Da
Mount: Vixen Sphinx
Filter: Astronomik CLS
Guiding: 80/400 Skywatcher refractor - SkyWatcher SynGuider
Light frames: 24 x 5 mins (total: 2 hours), ISO 3200, Custom WB, calibrated with darks
Date: 17-18 October 2020
Location: Chalkidiki, Greece
Software: SiriL (calibration, background extraction, registration, stacking, color calibration, stretch), StarNet++, Adobe Photoshop CC 2022 with Astronomy Tools Actions.
Located about 2,400 light years away, towards the Cepheus constellation and catalogued as Sh2-155, the "Cave Nebula", is a diffuse Hydrogen-Alpha (Hα) emission nebula, inside a complex region of gas and dust. The hydrogen gas is ionized by the radiation of nearby young, hot stars inside the Cepheus molecular cloud and emits copious amounts of visible light with the characteristic red light. Astronomers have found that inside the nebula new stars are being born, as the radiation of the hot stars compresses the gas and triggers the star-forming process. It is a difficult object, faintly visible with a large telescope, but photographs reveal a wealth of detail, especially with the use of specialized filters.
VdB 155 is the small blue reflection nebula above and to the right of the Cave Nebula.
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Details:
Telescope: Orion EON 80ED refractor, F = 500 mm, f/6.25
Camera: Canon EOS 20Da
Mount: Vixen Sphinx
Filter: Astronomik CLS
Guiding: 80/400 Skywatcher refractor - SkyWatcher SynGuider
Light frames: 20 x 5 mins (total: 100 mins), ISO 3200, Custom WB
Support frames: Darks
Date - Location: 20 - 21 September 2020 - Chalkidiki, Greece (Bortle class 4)
Processing: SiriL, StarNet, Adobe Photoshop 2021 with Astronomy Tools Actions Set (spikes added digitally to the brightest stars).
An aurora (plural: auroras or aurorae), also known as the polar lights or aurora Polaris, is a natural light display in Earth's sky, predominantly seen in high-latitude regions (around the Arctic and Antarctic). Auroras display dynamic patterns of brilliant lights that appear as curtains, rays, spirals, or dynamic flickers covering the entire sky.
Auroras are the result of disturbances in the magnetosphere caused by solar wind. These disturbances alter the trajectories of charged particles in the magnetospheric plasma. These particles, mainly electrons and protons, precipitate into the upper atmosphere (thermosphere/exosphere). The resulting ionization and excitation of atmospheric constituents emit light of varying colour and complexity. The form of the aurora, occurring within bands around both polar regions, is also dependent on the amount of acceleration imparted to the precipitating particles.
Most of the planets in the Solar System, some natural satellites, brown dwarfs, and even comets also host auroras.
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M20 (often referred to as "Trifid nebula") is a collection of three different nebulae in the Sagittarius constellation, around 9000 light years from earth.
Not only is this a collection of three different nebulae; it’s also three completely different types:
- Dark nebula: this part consists of dark dust clouds that absorb/block any light from stars behind it. You can see this as the black lines in the center of the image.
- Emission nebula: this part consists of clouds of hydrogen that get ionized (think of it as getting energized and glowing) due to the presence of nearby stars. You can see it as the red'ish part of the image.
- Reflection nebula: this part consists of clouds of interstellar dust, which reflect the light of nearby stars. You can see this as the blue part of the image.
Setup:
Planewave CDK24
Moravian C3-61000 Pro
Planewave L-600
Image acquisition details:
14x900" HA
12x600" Red
12x600" Green
12x600" Blue
NGC 6164 is an emission nebula in the Norma constellation, around 4200 light years from earth.
Upon first glancing at the image, it might appear not too dissimilar from your typical planetary nebula. That's however absolutely not what's going on here.
Both of the structures surrounding the central star were actually ejected from that very star (while it is still very much alive/active). Think of this as a coronal mass ejection that we know from seeing it happen quite frequently on the Sun, but at a much larger scale. The ejected material over time moved further and further away from the star, getting ionized by its energy; causing the spectacle that we're now able to witness.
Image acquisition details:
19x900" Luminance
17x900" Red
12x900" Green
15x900" Blue
28x1800" HA
27x1800" OIII
NGC 3521 is a spiral galaxy in the Leo constellation, around 26 million light years from earth.
This specific galaxy is a so called "low-ionization nuclear emission-line region" (LINER) galaxy. In normal people speak, it basically means the following:
Chemical elements have a certain threshold of energy requirements they need to meet in order to ionize (for the sake of simplicity, think of it as energizing them which causes them to radiate). When analyzing the core region of this galaxy, we see emissions from elements you don't necessarily expect (due to their fairly high energy requirements). So that beckons the question, where's all that energy coming from? To the best of our current understanding, there's two options:
1) Supermassive black hole: Most galaxies have one of these in their core region. Dump enough material onto them and you'll have a situation where huge amounts of energy is being emitted.
2) Dense star formation regions: Stars obviously emit energy. Concentrate enough of them in relatively small amount of space (astronomically speaking) and the energy emitted will of course be very focused as well.
Image acquisition details:
15x1800" HA
36x1200" Luminance
20x1200" Red
20x1200" Green
20x1200" Blue
An aurora (plural: auroras or aurorae), also known as the polar lights or aurora Polaris, is a natural light display in Earth's sky, predominantly seen in high-latitude regions (around the Arctic and Antarctic). Auroras display dynamic patterns of brilliant lights that appear as curtains, rays, spirals, or dynamic flickers covering the entire sky.
Auroras are the result of disturbances in the magnetosphere caused by solar wind. These disturbances alter the trajectories of charged particles in the magnetospheric plasma. These particles, mainly electrons and protons, precipitate into the upper atmosphere (thermosphere/exosphere). The resulting ionization and excitation of atmospheric constituents emit light of varying colour and complexity. The form of the aurora, occurring within bands around both polar regions, is also dependent on the amount of acceleration imparted to the precipitating particles.
Most of the planets in the Solar System, some natural satellites, brown dwarfs, and even comets also host auroras.
NGC 2626 is an emission/reflection nebula in the Vela constellation, around 3900 light years from earth.
The colourful spectacle around the central region of the frame is essentially the result of a couple of massive blue stars ionizing some of the hydrogen in the region, causing it to emit that typical red glow. The blue'ish glow next to it is simply starlight being reflected by the dense dust clouds.
Image acquisition details:
20x1800" HA
21x1200" Luminance
15x1200" Red
15x1200" Green
15x1200" Blue
The Triangulum Galaxy (known as Messier 33 or NGC 598) is a beautiful large spiral galaxy in the constellation of Triangulum. It can be (barely) seen with the unaided eye as a faint small smudge only under a truly dark, transparent sky. It is thus one of the most distant objects visible to the unaided eye, since its distance is calculated to be about 3 million light-years. However and due to its relatively large apparent size (almost as large as the area covered by four full Moons), it has a low surface brightness and therefore it is a difficult object to observe under less than ideal conditions.
M33's loosely-wound spiral arms are filled with numerous reddish HII regions (emission nebulae of ionized hydrogen), as well as bluish clouds of young stars. Many of them have their own NGC numbers, the most prominent being NGC 604 (visible at the lower left of the spiral at 8 o' clock position from the nucleus). NGC 604 has a diameter of nearly 1,500 light-years and is estimated that it contains at least 200 newly-formed hot stars.
The galaxy was probably discovered in the 17th Century by Giovanni Batista Hodierna and rediscovered later in 1764 by Charles Messier, who gave it the catalog name M33. It was among the first "Nebulae" identified as extragalactic objects and it was E. Hubble that measured its distance using pulsating stars known as Cepheids, that placed it well outside our own Milky Way.
M33 is the third-largest galaxy of the Local Group, after the Andromeda Galaxy and our own Milky Way, with an estimated diameter of 50,000 light-years, about half the size of the Milky Way. Some astronomers believe that M33 may be a remote but gravitationally bound companion of the Andromeda galaxy.
Image Details:
Telescope: Orion EON ED 80/500 refractor
Mount: Modified Vixen Sphinx (NexSXW)
Camera: Canon EOS 20Da
Light frames: 34 x 3 mins (total: 102 mins), ISO 1600, Daylight WB
Support frames: Darks, Bias
Guiding: Skywatcher 80/400 refractor, Skywatcher Synguider autoguider
Date & Location: 16/10/2018 - Chalkidiki, Greece
Processing: DSS 4.1.1, Adobe Photoshop CS6 with Astronomy Tools Actions Set (spikes added to brightest stars)
NGC 2170 is an emission/reflection/dark nebula in the Monoceros constellation, around 2400 light years from earth.
Besides just being pleasing to look at, this area provides a perfect showcase for different types of nebulosity all in one. The blue areas are reflection nebulae, which as the name suggests means that starlight simply gets reflected there. The red areas are emission nebulae, which means that the energy in said areas is so high (caused by UV radiation from nearby stars) that it causes the gas in said areas (mostly hydrogen) to ionize and emit red/pink'ish light as a result. The dark areas are areas of dense dust concentration where neither of the two previous things is able to happen and very little light can penetrate.
Image acquisition details:
15x1200" Luminance
15x1200" Red
15x1200" Green
15x1200" Blue
ionized quadrupole elections are high energy creatures which manifest as biomorphic cloud-like entities.
Their existence is transient, but poetically magnificent.
Our fear is creating one with the ability to sustain itself in our environment with the potential to evolve into an electromagnetic
being capable of erasing all electrons from the world electrical grid. . . . . . effectively leaving the planet without electricity.
I spent a couple days in northern Minnesota and was fortunate to see some northern lights.
I was kind of surprised I wasn't able to see the colors with my eye until I checked the display on my camera.
Per Wiki...Auroras are the result of disturbances in the magnetosphere caused by solar wind. These disturbances are sometimes strong enough to alter the trajectories of charged particles in both solar wind and magnetospheric plasma. These particles, mainly electrons and protons, precipitate into the upper atmosphere (thermosphere/exosphere).
The resulting ionization and excitation of atmospheric constituents emit light of varying color and complexity. The form of the aurora, occurring within bands around both polar regions, is also dependent on the amount of acceleration imparted to the precipitating particles. Precipitating protons generally produce optical emissions as incident hydrogen atoms after gaining electrons from the atmosphere. Proton auroras are usually observed at lower latitudes.
It is peak wildflower season in the lower to middle elevations of the southern Rockies. Prairie spiderwort (Tradescantia occidentalis) is one of the more striking flowers, seen here blooming in a montane ponderosa pine savanna. The purple hairs on the filaments of the stamen (pollen bearing organs) are one of those interesting ornaments that make you wonder what their function might be.
Spiderworts have a unique color response to ionizing radiation, changing to a pink color. This makes them a good bioassay for radioactive fallout.
Prairie spiderworts occur throughout central western North America from Canada to Mexico, primarily in grasslands, but also into the lower slopes of the Rockies as seen here.
NGC 1360 is a planetary nebula in the Fornax constellation, around 1500 light years from earth.
You're essentially looking at the remnants of a "dead" star that has ejected its shell (the gas cloud you see was once the star's outer layer). Interestingly, this specific planetary nebula looks quite different from what we would expect. Typically, we only see oxygen emissions (the green/blue'ish colour) close to the remnants of our "dead" star because the energy emitted by it is still potent enough to ionize the oxygen (for the sake of simplicity, think of it as the material getting energized and emitting light in the process). As we move further and further away from the remnants of the star, energy emissions become less potent up to the point where there's not enough to ionize the oxygen and we should instead see emissions of less energy demanding elements being dominant (hydrogen for example, resulting in a red'ish colour). That's clearly not the case here. So why is that?
The answer lies with the big bright object you see right at the center of the nebula. This is not a foreground star, but one that's actually in the nebula itself. On top of that, it's a quite massive and very energetic star. Its energy emissions alone basically overrule everything I just explained and causes oxygen to be ionized all throughout the structure, resulting in the somewhat different aesthetics.
Image acquisition details:
19x1800" OIII
21x1200" Luminance
20x900" Red
20x900" Green
20x900" Blue
Object: IC1805 – The Heart Nebula SHO (2022)
The Heart Nebula, IC 1805, Sh2-190, lies some 7500 light years away from Earth and is located in the Perseus arm of the Galaxy in the constellation Cassiopeia. This is an emission nebula composed of glowing gases (ionized hydrogen, sulfur and oxygen) and darker cold dust lanes. The nebula is shape and illumination are produced by a central star cluster known as Melotte 15 aka Collinder 26.
Details:
- Acquisition Date: 11/23/2022 to 11/24/2022
- Location: Western Massachusetts, USA
- Imaging Camera: QHY600PH-M -10°C - Mode 1(High Gain) Offset:15 Gain:56
- Telescope: Takahashi FSQ106 EDXIII @ f/5 (530mm focal length - 106mm aperture)
- Mount: Astro-Physics AP1100 w/GTO4
- Guide scope: Celestron Off Axis Guider
- Guide Camera: ASI174m mini
- Software: Adobe Photoshop CS5, Sequence Generator Pro, PixInsight 1.8 Ripley, Aries Astro Pixel Processor
Filters:
- Chroma Ha 3nm 50mm
- Chroma OIII 3nm 50mm
- Astrodon SII 3nm 50mm
Exposure Times:
- Hydrogen Alpha (Ha): 30 x 10min. (300min) bin 1x1
- Oxygen III (OIII):30 x 10min. (300min) bin 1x1
- Sulfur II (SII):25 x 10min. (250min) bin 1x1
Total Exposure:610min. (14.17hrs)
Sky Quality:
-Magnitude: 19.71
-Bortle Class 5
-1.41 mcd/m^2 Brightness
-1234.6 ucd/m^2 Artificial Brightness
NGC 7635 Bubble Nebula
Distance from Earth: 11,090 light years
NGC 7635 (sometimes known as the Bubble Nebula or C 11) is a diffuse nebula visible in the constellation of Cassiopeia, towards the border with Cepheus.
It is a HII region, at the southern vertex of which there is an empty structure, caused by the pressure of the radiation of a central star of blue color (spectral class O), SAO 20575, of ninth magnitude, whose stellar wind reaches 2000 km / s; it is a blue Giant, which is also responsible for the ionization of the nebula, which emits its own light. Its distance from the Sun is estimated at 11,000 light-years.
Meade RCX 14 "
Ioptron Cem120
Moravian G2-8300
Astronomik filters
In the southern hemisphere you can find the nebula GUM15. about 3000 light years away from us its an active starforming region with lots of ionized hydrogen. The blue star on the left is HIP 43073, some 744 ly from the earth.
Data fron TelescopeLive CHI-1 in Chile.19 hours of exposure.
Processed in PixInsight and Lightroom.
If your world is cycling out of control - take time to connect with mother earth.
Deep slow pragmatic breaths through the nose, slowly exhaling through the mouth.
Take the oxygen in deeper and deeper, with each breath imagining new regenerative life force energy into the deepest cells of your body.
On release imagine all the stress being released from every muscle in your body.
From the tips of your toes to the top of your head.
Releasing all the negative tension from your body.
Sit in nature, feel the wind and the sun trickling all over your body as if mother nature is giving you a gentle subtle massage.
Waterfalls, the oceans, forests are full of negative irons - counteracting the over supply of positive irons we are subjected to in air conditioning, inside buildings, traffic and pollution.
Salt lamps are a great source close to your bed at night or next to your computer. Alternatively, invest in an ionizer.
Drink fresh clean filtered water, pick fruits and plants fresh from a farm or your own vegie patch. Choose wholesome foods from mother nature. Avoid all sugar.
Invest in traditional therapies - seek them out - they have been around long before we existed. God given plants and herbal extracts for healing and repairing.
Nurture yourself - mother nature is surrounding you with her healing energy.
Now more than ever as the storm is upon humanity - we are being asked to dig deep, to find our courage.
Find the joy in the simple things of life.
More time with loved ones, walks along the beach or into the forest.
Dance, sing, laugh as much as you can.
Now more than ever before humanity will be challenged in ways that we have never experienced in our lifetime.
Find your tribe - we are being connected - humanity is shifting into unity.
Remember LOVE is the most powerful of all emotion.
LOVE will prevail and collectively we will create a new and wonderful world.
Trust in the process.
Know there is plenty of help - pray, eat and sleep.
This is a photograph taken with a small refractor telescope and a DSLR of two Deep-Sky objects located in the Northern Hemisphere constellation of Cassiopeia, the Queen. Although they look like being close to each other, they are located far apart from each other, both of course belonging to our Milky Way Galaxy collection of stars and nebulae.
The object at center is M52 (Messier 52, NGC 7654), an open star cluster of about 200 stars at an estimated distance of about 4,000 to 5,000 light years. It was discovered by Charles Messier on 1774. These stars were born from the same interstellar nebula of gas and dust about 35 million years ago, so this is a young star cluster by astronomy standards. This object, visible with a small telescope or even binoculars under clear, dark skies is sometimes called the Salt-and-Pepper cluster.
To the right of M52 we can see the Bubble nebula (NGC 7635), which was discovered by W. Herschel in 1787. This object is located further away from M52, at an estimated distance of about 11,000 light years. The Bubble Nebula is a strange planetary nebula, formed from a fast stellar wind of a hot, young, massive star located inside the nebula. As the wind comes off the star, it pushes the surrounding gas to form a giant sphere that is surrounded by a molecular cloud. The high-energy ultraviolet light from the star ionizes the gas atoms, causing them to glow. The star that illuminates the Bubble is some 25 to 40 times as massive as our Sun and thousands of times brighter. This Wolf-Rayet star will probably end up exploding as a supernova.
The Bubble nebula is much dimmer than M52 and requires a large telescope to be seen. Finally, at the upper right we can see a smaller nebula, which is catalogued as NGC 7538, at about 9,000 light years, a region of active star formation containing a protostars with a mass of about 300 solar masses.
I photographed these two objects back in 2017 but this time I managed to collect about 1,5 hours of data with the use of a CLS light pollution filter, so hopefully a better result was obtained.
Thanks to everyone for viewing - clear skies!
Details:
Telescope: Orion EON 80ED
Camera: Canon EOS 20Da
Mount: Vixen Sphinx (NexSXW)
Filter: Astronomik CLS
Guiding: 80/400 Skywatcher refractor - SkyWatcher SynGuider
Light frames: 20 x 5 mins (total: 100 mins), ISO 3200, Custom WB, calibrated with darks
Date: 26 October 2019
Processing: DSS 4.2.3, Adobe Photoshop 2020 with Astronomy Tools Actions set (spikes added to the brightest stars).
An aurora (pl. aurorae or auroras), also commonly known as the northern lights (aurora borealis) or southern lights (aurora australis), is a natural light display in Earth's sky, predominantly seen in high-latitude regions (around the Arctic and Antarctic). Auroras display dynamic patterns of brilliant lights that appear as curtains, rays, spirals, or dynamic flickers covering the entire sky.
Auroras are the result of disturbances in the magnetosphere caused by the solar wind. Major disturbances result from enhancements in the speed of the solar wind from coronal holes and coronal mass ejections. These disturbances alter the trajectories of charged particles in the magnetospheric plasma. These particles, mainly electrons and protons, precipitate into the upper atmosphere (thermosphere/exosphere). The resulting ionization and excitation of atmospheric constituents emit light of varying colour and complexity. The form of the aurora, occurring within bands around both polar regions, is also dependent on the amount of acceleration imparted to the precipitating particles.
Most of the planets in the Solar System, some natural satellites, brown dwarfs, and even comets also host auroras.
KP9 Geomagnetic Storm from AR 3664: Giant Sunspot Group.
IC 1805 Heart nebula
moonrocksastro.com/index.php/astro-blog/
The Heart Nebula, IC 1805, Sh2-190, lies some 7500 light years away from Earth and is located in the Perseus Arm of the Galaxy in the constellation Cassiopeia. This is an emission nebula showing glowing gas and darker dust lanes. The nebula is formed by plasma of ionized hydrogen and free electrons.
The very brightest part of this nebula (the knot at the right) is separately classified as NGC 896, because it was the first part of this nebula to be discovered.
The nebula's intense red output and its configuration are driven by the radiation emanating from a small group of stars near the nebula's center. This open cluster of stars known as Melotte 15 contains a few bright stars nearly 50 times the mass of our Sun, and many more dim stars that are only a fraction of our Sun's mass. The cluster used to contain a microquasar that was expelled millions of years ago.
Integration: 26.7 hours
Imaging telescopes or lenses: Takahashi TSA 102
Imaging cameras: Starlight Express SXVR-H18
Mounts: Sky-Watcher NEQ6 Pro
Guiding telescopes or lenses: Takahashi TSA 102
Guiding cameras: sx loadstar
Focal reducers: Takahashi TOA/FS Reducer
Software: Sequence Generator Pro, PHD, Photoshop CS5
Filters: Baader Ha, Hb, OIII & SII
Accessories: Starlight Xpress USB filter wheel, Baader Planetarium 36mm narrowband filters
Bryce Canyon, UT
The overcast and intermittent rain in the low southwestern deserts made for days of frustration with little end in sight. The system was stalled, no breaks in the canopy, no good for photography. I laid out my Indian Country map and plotted a course north, where maybe I’d find snow in the higher deserts. It bore out. Fresh snow had moved through Zion and past the Paunsaugunt Plateau, and I arrived at Bryce as the storm petered out. I followed someone else’s trail through the forest thinking I had a shortcut to the Rim Trail, and continued on like an idiot after it was obvious they had turned back, snow to my knees and looking for oxygen in my exertion at 8000 feet. Thankfully I brought micro spikes, and needed them when I reached the beaten path, frozen and refrozen, and under the fresh inches today. There is clarity in the air after rain or snow, or so it seems. I’ve heard that the precipitation picks up dust particles, that some kind of ionization takes place effectively cleaning the air and increasing visibilty. Is it what we see, or how we see it? We learn through the lens of what came behind us, not what is ahead. And yet, some directions we look in are clearer than others. An undecided sky let the afternoon sun peekaboo features in the landscape. It dappled the horizon in degrees of shadow and light. Beyond Boat Mesa, Canaan and Tablet Top, some 30 miles away, were alight with rising mists where perhaps the storm still brewed. Beyond them is where I will head tomorrow.
An aurora (pl. aurorae or auroras), also commonly known as the northern lights (aurora borealis) or southern lights (aurora australis), is a natural light display in Earth's sky, predominantly seen in high-latitude regions (around the Arctic and Antarctic). Auroras display dynamic patterns of brilliant lights that appear as curtains, rays, spirals, or dynamic flickers covering the entire sky.
Auroras are the result of disturbances in the magnetosphere caused by the solar wind. Major disturbances result from enhancements in the speed of the solar wind from coronal holes and coronal mass ejections. These disturbances alter the trajectories of charged particles in the magnetospheric plasma. These particles, mainly electrons and protons, precipitate into the upper atmosphere (thermosphere/exosphere). The resulting ionization and excitation of atmospheric constituents emit light of varying colour and complexity. The form of the aurora, occurring within bands around both polar regions, is also dependent on the amount of acceleration imparted to the precipitating particles.
Most of the planets in the Solar System, some natural satellites, brown dwarfs, and even comets also host auroras.
KP9 Geomagnetic Storm from AR 3664: Giant Sunspot Group.
An aurora (pl. aurorae or auroras), also commonly known as the northern lights (aurora borealis) or southern lights (aurora australis), is a natural light display in Earth's sky, predominantly seen in high-latitude regions (around the Arctic and Antarctic). Auroras display dynamic patterns of brilliant lights that appear as curtains, rays, spirals, or dynamic flickers covering the entire sky.
Auroras are the result of disturbances in the magnetosphere caused by the solar wind. Major disturbances result from enhancements in the speed of the solar wind from coronal holes and coronal mass ejections. These disturbances alter the trajectories of charged particles in the magnetospheric plasma. These particles, mainly electrons and protons, precipitate into the upper atmosphere (thermosphere/exosphere). The resulting ionization and excitation of atmospheric constituents emit light of varying colour and complexity. The form of the aurora, occurring within bands around both polar regions, is also dependent on the amount of acceleration imparted to the precipitating particles.
Most of the planets in the Solar System, some natural satellites, brown dwarfs, and even comets also host auroras.
KP9 Geomagnetic Storm from AR 3664: Giant Sunspot Group.
Portion of the Eastern Veil Nebula also known as Caldwell 33, whose brightest area is NGC6992.
The Veil Nebula is a cloud of heated and ionized gas and dust in the constellation Cygnus.
The Nebula was discovered on 1784 by William Herschel.
Given a distance of 2400 Light Years, this gives the radius of the entire nebula as 64 Light Years.
Undulations in the surface of the shell lead to multiple filamentary images, which appear to be intertwined.
Equipment:
Celestron 9.25” 2350mm Edge-HD Telescope
Sky-Watcher EQ6-R Pro Computerized GoTo Telescope Mount
Orion 50mm Helical Guide Scope & StarShoot AutoGuider
Celestron 9x50 Finder Scope
ZWO ASI294MC Pro Color Camera
Celestron .7 EdgeHD Reducer Lens
PHD2 Guiding Software
SharpCap Pro
Thank you for your comments.
Gemma
This year’s Perseid meteor shower in northern Colorado was marked by smoky skies and moonshine during the best viewing times. However there were fairly clear skies the last night of “peak” viewing, and even with the thin veil of haze the show was beautiful.
This photo is a compilation of 16 shots, one for the base (foreground snags and stars) taken fairly early in the evening, and the others with individual meteor trails added adjusting for the approximate orientation to the constellation Perseus, in the northern portion of the Milky Way. The tree snags are wind-sculpted limber pines on Grassy Top, a promontory on the east side of the Front Range near Ward, CO.
The colors in the meteor streaks are due to ionization of elements in the dust particles (from comet Swift-Tuttle) as they burn up in the atmosphere. Perseids are characteristically a mix of pink, blue and green as you can see here.
An aurora (pl. aurorae or auroras), also commonly known as the northern lights (aurora borealis) or southern lights (aurora australis), is a natural light display in Earth's sky, predominantly seen in high-latitude regions (around the Arctic and Antarctic). Auroras display dynamic patterns of brilliant lights that appear as curtains, rays, spirals, or dynamic flickers covering the entire sky.
Auroras are the result of disturbances in the magnetosphere caused by the solar wind. Major disturbances result from enhancements in the speed of the solar wind from coronal holes and coronal mass ejections. These disturbances alter the trajectories of charged particles in the magnetospheric plasma. These particles, mainly electrons and protons, precipitate into the upper atmosphere (thermosphere/exosphere). The resulting ionization and excitation of atmospheric constituents emit light of varying colour and complexity. The form of the aurora, occurring within bands around both polar regions, is also dependent on the amount of acceleration imparted to the precipitating particles.
Most of the planets in the Solar System, some natural satellites, brown dwarfs, and even comets also host auroras.
KP9 Geomagnetic Storm from AR 3664: Giant Sunspot Group.
This is data that is about 18 months old .... It was shouting out for a reprocess!!
The North America Nebula (NGC 7000 or Caldwell 20) is an emission nebula in the constellation Cygnus. The remarkable shape of the emission nebula resembles that of the continent of North America, complete with a prominent Gulf of Mexico. The North America Nebula is large, covering an area of more than four times the size of the full moon; but its surface brightness is low, so normally it cannot be seen with the unaided eye. The North America Nebula and the nearby Pelican Nebula, (IC 5070) are in fact parts of the same interstellar cloud of ionized hydrogen. The distance of the nebula complex is though to be approx 1800 light years away.
Details
M: Avalon Linear Fast reverse
T: Takahashi FSQ85 0.73x
C: QSI690-wsg with 3nm Ha filter
This is a 2x2 pane mosaic
29x1800s in Ha
30x1800s in OIII
Total exposure time 29 hours and 30 minutes
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Processing Paul C Swift M42 in colour!
Data: NASA, ESA, Hubble
Note on Coloration
source Wiki:
Observers have long noted a distinctive greenish tint to the nebula, in addition to regions of red and of blue-violet. The red hue is a result of the Hα recombination line radiation at a wavelength of 656.3 nm. The blue-violet coloration is the reflected radiation from the massive O-class stars at the core of the nebula.
The green hue was a puzzle for astronomers in the early part of the 20th century because none of the known spectral lines at that time could explain it. There was some speculation that the lines were caused by a new element, and the name nebulium was coined for this mysterious material. With better understanding of atomic physics, however, it was later determined that the green spectrum was caused by a low-probability electron transition in doubly ionized oxygen, a so-called "forbidden transition". This radiation was all but impossible to reproduce in the laboratory at the time, because it depended on the quiescent and nearly collision-free environment found in the high vacuum of deep space.
#fineart #Astrophotography #Space #astronomia
An aurora (pl. aurorae or auroras), also commonly known as the northern lights (aurora borealis) or southern lights (aurora australis), is a natural light display in Earth's sky, predominantly seen in high-latitude regions (around the Arctic and Antarctic). Auroras display dynamic patterns of brilliant lights that appear as curtains, rays, spirals, or dynamic flickers covering the entire sky.
Auroras are the result of disturbances in the magnetosphere caused by the solar wind. Major disturbances result from enhancements in the speed of the solar wind from coronal holes and coronal mass ejections. These disturbances alter the trajectories of charged particles in the magnetospheric plasma. These particles, mainly electrons and protons, precipitate into the upper atmosphere (thermosphere/exosphere). The resulting ionization and excitation of atmospheric constituents emit light of varying colour and complexity. The form of the aurora, occurring within bands around both polar regions, is also dependent on the amount of acceleration imparted to the precipitating particles.
Most of the planets in the Solar System, some natural satellites, brown dwarfs, and even comets also host auroras.
KP9 Geomagnetic Storm from AR 3664: Giant Sunspot Group.
An aurora (pl. aurorae or auroras), also commonly known as the northern lights (aurora borealis) or southern lights (aurora australis), is a natural light display in Earth's sky, predominantly seen in high-latitude regions (around the Arctic and Antarctic). Auroras display dynamic patterns of brilliant lights that appear as curtains, rays, spirals, or dynamic flickers covering the entire sky.
Auroras are the result of disturbances in the magnetosphere caused by the solar wind. Major disturbances result from enhancements in the speed of the solar wind from coronal holes and coronal mass ejections. These disturbances alter the trajectories of charged particles in the magnetospheric plasma. These particles, mainly electrons and protons, precipitate into the upper atmosphere (thermosphere/exosphere). The resulting ionization and excitation of atmospheric constituents emit light of varying colour and complexity. The form of the aurora, occurring within bands around both polar regions, is also dependent on the amount of acceleration imparted to the precipitating particles.
Most of the planets in the Solar System, some natural satellites, brown dwarfs, and even comets also host auroras.
KP9 Geomagnetic Storm from AR 3664: Giant Sunspot Group.
An aurora (pl. aurorae or auroras), also commonly known as the northern lights (aurora borealis) or southern lights (aurora australis), is a natural light display in Earth's sky, predominantly seen in high-latitude regions (around the Arctic and Antarctic). Auroras display dynamic patterns of brilliant lights that appear as curtains, rays, spirals, or dynamic flickers covering the entire sky.
Auroras are the result of disturbances in the magnetosphere caused by the solar wind. Major disturbances result from enhancements in the speed of the solar wind from coronal holes and coronal mass ejections. These disturbances alter the trajectories of charged particles in the magnetospheric plasma. These particles, mainly electrons and protons, precipitate into the upper atmosphere (thermosphere/exosphere). The resulting ionization and excitation of atmospheric constituents emit light of varying colour and complexity. The form of the aurora, occurring within bands around both polar regions, is also dependent on the amount of acceleration imparted to the precipitating particles.
Most of the planets in the Solar System, some natural satellites, brown dwarfs, and even comets also host auroras.
KP9 Geomagnetic Storm from AR 3664: Giant Sunspot Group.
An aurora (pl. aurorae or auroras), also commonly known as the northern lights (aurora borealis) or southern lights (aurora australis), is a natural light display in Earth's sky, predominantly seen in high-latitude regions (around the Arctic and Antarctic). Auroras display dynamic patterns of brilliant lights that appear as curtains, rays, spirals, or dynamic flickers covering the entire sky.
Auroras are the result of disturbances in the magnetosphere caused by the solar wind. Major disturbances result from enhancements in the speed of the solar wind from coronal holes and coronal mass ejections. These disturbances alter the trajectories of charged particles in the magnetospheric plasma. These particles, mainly electrons and protons, precipitate into the upper atmosphere (thermosphere/exosphere). The resulting ionization and excitation of atmospheric constituents emit light of varying colour and complexity. The form of the aurora, occurring within bands around both polar regions, is also dependent on the amount of acceleration imparted to the precipitating particles.
Most of the planets in the Solar System, some natural satellites, brown dwarfs, and even comets also host auroras.
KP9 Geomagnetic Storm from AR 3664: Giant Sunspot Group.
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Thank you for looking at Sh2-308. Ha, OIII and RGB.
Also designated as Sharpless 308, RCW 11, or LBN 1052, is an emission nebula and HII region located near the center of the constellation Canis Major, composed of ionized hydrogen. It is about 8 degrees south of Sirius, the brightest star in the night sky.
This wonderful data set comes from team Chilescope and demonstrate the capability of great optics located under true clear skies. Well done team! I had an enjoyable time processing this data. Keep up the good work Team Chilescope
Chilescope #Astrophotography #Space #astronomy
An aurora (pl. aurorae or auroras), also commonly known as the northern lights (aurora borealis) or southern lights (aurora australis), is a natural light display in Earth's sky, predominantly seen in high-latitude regions (around the Arctic and Antarctic). Auroras display dynamic patterns of brilliant lights that appear as curtains, rays, spirals, or dynamic flickers covering the entire sky.
Auroras are the result of disturbances in the magnetosphere caused by the solar wind. Major disturbances result from enhancements in the speed of the solar wind from coronal holes and coronal mass ejections. These disturbances alter the trajectories of charged particles in the magnetospheric plasma. These particles, mainly electrons and protons, precipitate into the upper atmosphere (thermosphere/exosphere). The resulting ionization and excitation of atmospheric constituents emit light of varying colour and complexity. The form of the aurora, occurring within bands around both polar regions, is also dependent on the amount of acceleration imparted to the precipitating particles.
Most of the planets in the Solar System, some natural satellites, brown dwarfs, and even comets also host auroras.
KP9 Geomagnetic Storm from AR 3664: Giant Sunspot Group.
SH2-134 is a massive emission nebula located in the southern part of the constellation Cepheus about 2900 light years from earth. It is roughly centered around the fifth magnitude, blue supergiant star λ Cephei.
SH2-135 is a smaller HII emission nebula/region also located in southern Cepheus with a prominent and expanding ionization front. Current estimations of distance from earth are about 10,100 light years.
Aside from SH2-134 & SH2-135, the field contains objects from Lynds' Catalogue of Bright Nebulae
- LBN 485
- LBN 486
- LBN 488
- LBN 489
- LBN 490
- LBN 491
- LBN 492
- LBN 492
Also in the field is NGC 7281, NGC7261 & NGC7235 which are open clusters, respectively about 5300 and 9200 light years distant.
Details:
- Acquisition Date: 08/14/2022 to 09/03/2022
- Location: Western Massachusetts
- Imaging Camera: QHY600PH-M -10°C - Mode 1(High Gain) Offset:15 Gain:56
- Telescope: Takahashi FSQ106 EDXIII @ f/5 (530mm focal length -106mm aperture)
- Mount: Astro-Physics AP1100 w/GTO4
- Guide scope: Celestron Off Axis Guider
- Guide Camera: ASI174m mini
- Software: Adobe Photoshop CS5, Sequence Generator Pro, PixInsight 1.8 Ripley, Aries Astro Pixel Processor
Filters used:
- Chroma Hydrogen Alpha (Ha) 3nm 50mm
- Chroma Oxygen III (OIII) 3nm 50mm
- Astrodon Sulfur II (SII) 3nm 50mm
Exposure Times:
Chroma Hydrogen Alpha:28 x 600 sec (280 min)
Chroma Oxygen III: 21 x 600 sec (210 min)
Astrodon Sulfur II: 19 x 600 sec (190 min)
Total Exposure: 680min. (11.3 hrs.)
Sky Quality:
-Magnitude: 19.71
-Bortle Class 5
-1.41 mcd/m^2 Brightness
-1234.6 ucd/m^2 Artificial Brightness
An aurora (pl. aurorae or auroras), also commonly known as the northern lights (aurora borealis) or southern lights (aurora australis), is a natural light display in Earth's sky, predominantly seen in high-latitude regions (around the Arctic and Antarctic). Auroras display dynamic patterns of brilliant lights that appear as curtains, rays, spirals, or dynamic flickers covering the entire sky.
Auroras are the result of disturbances in the magnetosphere caused by the solar wind. Major disturbances result from enhancements in the speed of the solar wind from coronal holes and coronal mass ejections. These disturbances alter the trajectories of charged particles in the magnetospheric plasma. These particles, mainly electrons and protons, precipitate into the upper atmosphere (thermosphere/exosphere). The resulting ionization and excitation of atmospheric constituents emit light of varying colour and complexity. The form of the aurora, occurring within bands around both polar regions, is also dependent on the amount of acceleration imparted to the precipitating particles.
Most of the planets in the Solar System, some natural satellites, brown dwarfs, and even comets also host auroras.
KP9 Geomagnetic Storm from AR 3664: Giant Sunspot Group.
Lion Nebula - Sharpless 132
The Lion Nebula, catalogued as Sharpless 132, in the constellation Cepheus, is a faint emission nebula around 10,000 ly away. It contains two ionizing Wolf Rayet stars and two dark nebulae (LDN 1150 & 1154).
My latest astro project and my first attempt at mono with my ASI294mm-Pro. Processing was done with AstroPixelProcessor and Photoshop with StarXTerminator. A total of 17h 10' of exposure time with Ha, OIII and SII 7nm ZWO filters. The colours are false using a SHO palette which maps the SII signal to red, Ha signal to green and OIII signal to blue and the colours then changed in Photoshop.
More details and full resolution on Astrobin: astrob.in/yghdzf/E/
NGC 6960 is one of the designations given to the western region of the Cygnus loop or Veil Nebula. It is a cloud of heated ionized gas and dust located in the constellation of Cygnus. It is a supernova remnant from a star which exploded around 10,000 years ago and lies at an estimated distance between 1,200 and 5,800 light years. Imaged on the night of 25th.September 2020.
EQ6-R-PRO
SW ED100mmDS-PRO with x0.85 reducer/corrector to give f/7.65
QHY294C Gain2900 -20C
STC Duo 2" narrowband filter
8 x 900sec subs
Processed using Straton star removal, Pixinsight and Photoshop.
An aurora (pl. aurorae or auroras), also commonly known as the northern lights (aurora borealis) or southern lights (aurora australis), is a natural light display in Earth's sky, predominantly seen in high-latitude regions (around the Arctic and Antarctic). Auroras display dynamic patterns of brilliant lights that appear as curtains, rays, spirals, or dynamic flickers covering the entire sky.
Auroras are the result of disturbances in the magnetosphere caused by the solar wind. Major disturbances result from enhancements in the speed of the solar wind from coronal holes and coronal mass ejections. These disturbances alter the trajectories of charged particles in the magnetospheric plasma. These particles, mainly electrons and protons, precipitate into the upper atmosphere (thermosphere/exosphere). The resulting ionization and excitation of atmospheric constituents emit light of varying colour and complexity. The form of the aurora, occurring within bands around both polar regions, is also dependent on the amount of acceleration imparted to the precipitating particles.
Most of the planets in the Solar System, some natural satellites, brown dwarfs, and even comets also host auroras.
KP9 Geomagnetic Storm from AR 3664: Giant Sunspot Group.
The Veil Nebula is a cloud of heated and ionized gas and dust in the constellation Cygnus. It constitutes the visible portions of the Cygnus Loop, a large but relatively faint supernova remnant. The source supernova exploded some 5,000 to 8,000 years ago, and the remnants have since expanded to approx 6 times the diameter of the full moon. The distance to the nebula is not precisely known, but Far Ultraviolet Spectroscopic Explorer (FUSE) data supports a distance of about 1,470 light-years.
This is a 2 pane mosaic using the following equipment
Details:
M: Avalon Linear Fast reverse
T: Takahashi FSQ85 with 0.73x reducer
C: QSI 683 with 1.25" 3nm Astrodon Ha and OIII filters.
Pane 1 - 15x1800s Ha, 15x1800s OIII
Pane 2 - 15x1800s Ha, 15x1800s OIII
Total time: 30 hours
Thank you for looking at the Vela Supernova Remnant in Wide Field. The Vela-Puppis region of the southern sky features the largest ionized hydrogen nebula in the Galaxy
Nikon 200 F/2
Camera
FLI ML16200
Location
Chile
27 Jan 2021
Filters
Filters Ha OIII
Processing
PixInsight & PS
Credits
Paul Swift / Telescope Live
...through some moderate overcast, 5 second single exposure... note the star trails! It will be closest on 7/29/20. Next visit in 6700 years. The green color is from ionized cyanogen. Little Compton, RI, USA
This is a large nebula in the constellation Orion. It can be seen with binoculars in the middle of the sword (hanging from the belt). It's about 1400 light years away, one of the nearest star forming regions to earth. A compact group of 4 bright stars called the Trapezium is the primary light source for this nebula. The Trapezium is just visible in this image, in the whitest part of the nebula. The red color is light emitted by ionized hydrogen (H-alpha). The blue color is blue light from massive blue stars, reflected by dust grains.
Taken from Santa Rosa, CA January 2014
Telescope: Skywatcher MN-190
Camera: Canon T2i, modified for Ha
Mount: Orion Atlas
Exposure 4 hours
Reprocessed September 2023
Object: The Cygnus Wall in NGC7000 (SHO Palette) (Aug. 2025)
The Cygnus Wall or The Great Wall in Cygnus is the term for a structure in the North American Nebula (NGC7000) that comprise of prominent, bright ridge within the larger nebula. This area of the nebula exhibits the most concentrated star formation area in the complex of ionized gas and is located about 1600 to 1800 light-years away from Earth. The structure is a shock front surrounded by dark gas and dust in the constellation of Cygnus the Swan.
Details:
- Acquisition Date: 08/27/2025 to 08/31/2025
- Location: Western Massachusetts, USA
- Imaging Camera: QHY600PH-M -10°C - Mode 1(High Gain) Offset:15 Gain:56
- Telescope: Askar 185 APO 185mm f/7 Triplet Refractor 1295mm f/l
- Flattener: Askar 1x Full Frame Flattener for 185APO
- Mount: Astro-Physics AP1100 w/GTO4
- Guide scope: Celestron Off Axis Guider
- Guide Camera: ASI174m mini
- Software: Sequence Generator Pro, PixInsight 1.9 Lockhart, Aries Astro Pixel Processor, Adobe Photoshop CS5
Filters:
- Chroma Ha 3nm 50mm
- Chroma OIII 3nm 50mm
- Astrodon SII 3nm 50mm
Exposure Times:
- Hydrogen Alpha (Ha): 27 x 10min. (270min) bin 1x1
- Oxygen III (OIII):31x 10min. (310min) bin 1x1
- Sulfur II (SII):30 x 10min. (300min) bin 1x1
Total Exposure/Integration:880min. (14.7hr)
Sky Quality:
-Magnitude: 19.71
-Bortle Class 5
-1.41 mcd/m^2 Brightness
-1234.6 ucd/m^2 Artificial Brightness
Second pass. Updated the previous image by blending in a significant amount of natural light collected with LRGB filters. Also added more Oiii as that data was the most noisy.
Like the lobster claw nebula this was surprisingly hard to process for me. Each narrowband channel has a lot going on but it's hard to blend them together in a pleasing way. The details don't seem to coalesce into any mid-level structures even though individually it looks like they might. However blending and multiplying this with a natural light image brings out interesting colors and mid level structures. I will be experimenting more with this process now, most of my earlier targets are easily processed with either pure emission filters or natural light.
Data collection
Total integration time: 26.7 hours
2x Askar ACL200: 200mm f/4
1x Canon 200mm f/2.8
3x ZWO ASI533MM Mono Camera at -20C
Guided on ZWO AM5, Chroma filters:
251x Luminance @1m
112x Red, Green, Blue @1m
48xHa, 54xSii, 101xOiii @5m
Captured with N.I.N.A. processed with PixInsight, Ps
Overview
The Sadr Region—centered on the bright supergiant Sadr (γ Cygni) in the heart of the Northern Cross of Cygnus—is one of the richest wide-field nebular fields in the Milky Way. This picture with an apparent span of about ≈3°, the area presents an immense tapestry of emission nebulae, dark dust lanes, and star clouds belonging to the Cygnus X complex roughly 4,500–6,000 light-years away.
Central Star and Surrounding Emission
Sadr (Gamma Cygni) is an F-type supergiant (visual magnitude ≈2.2) that dominates the view but is not the primary source of the surrounding nebular excitation.
Around it lies a vast H II region catalogued as IC 1318, popularly called the Butterfly Nebula (not to be confused with the planetary nebula of the same nickname in Sagittarius). IC 1318’s two broad wings of hydrogen-alpha emission frame Sadr and give the region its butterfly-like appearance.
Major Nebular Structures in this image°
IC 1318 A, B, and C – The three principal emission “wings” of the Butterfly Nebula, glowing in hydrogen-alpha with intricate dark dust lanes dividing them.
LBN 251 and LBN 249 – Prominent Lynds Bright Nebula segments forming the brightest H α filaments and helping define the Butterfly’s structure.
Dark Nebulae (Barnard 343, 344 and others) – Complex networks of obscuring dust that carve the dramatic dark rifts through the glowing gas.
Open cluster NGC 6910 – A compact group of hot young stars just northeast of Sadr, whose ultraviolet radiation helps ionize parts of the surrounding gas.
Structure & Appearance
This region is a prime part of the Cygnus X star-forming complex, where massive stars and supernova remnants energize the interstellar medium. Bright hydrogen filaments intertwine with lanes of cold molecular dust, while young clusters such as NGC 6910 signal ongoing star formation.
Sources of Text
Sharpless, S. (1959) – A Catalogue of H II Regions listing IC 1318 and other Cygnus H II complexes.
Lynds, B. T. (1965) – Catalogue of Bright and Dark Nebulae for LBN and Barnard objects.
Goss & Shaver (1970s) – Radio surveys of the Cygnus X H II complex.
Gaia EDR3 (2020) – Distances and stellar parameters for Sadr and NGC 6910.
IPHAS H α Survey and deep narrowband imaging projects documenting the Crescent Nebula, the Soap Bubble planetary nebula, and the detailed filamentary structures of IC 1318.