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Planetary Nebula in Hydra
Apparent size: 0.7x0.6 arcmin
Visual Magnitude: +7.30
C11" (@2070mm FL) + ASI1600mm
Photo of oil droplets from the oil & water macro abstract photography assignment captured via Minolta MD Macro Rokkor-X 100mm F/4 lens. Inside the creative halls of the 494 ∞ Labs. Late July 2021.
Exposure Time: 1/15 sec. * ISO Speed: ISO-200 * Aperture: F/8 * Bracketing: None * Color Temperature: 3500 K * Plug-In: Sharp Pop by Preset Kingdom * Adaptor: 1:1 Extension Tube
The life of a planetary nebula is often chaotic, from the death of its parent star to the scattering of its contents far out into space. Captured here by the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope, ESO 455-10 is one such planetary nebula, located in the constellation of Scorpius (The Scorpion).
The oblate shells of ESO 455-10, previously held tightly together as layers of its central star, not only give this planetary nebula its unique appearance, but also offer information about the nebula. Seen in a field of stars, the distinct asymmetrical arc of material over the north side of the nebula is a clear sign of interactions between ESO 455-10 and the interstellar medium.
The interstellar medium is the material such as diffuse gas between star systems and galaxies. The star at the center of ESO 455-10 allows Hubble to see the interaction with the gas and dust of the nebula, the surrounding interstellar medium, and the light from the star itself. Planetary nebulae are thought to be crucial in galactic enrichment as they distribute their elements, particularly the heavier metal elements produced inside a star, into the interstellar medium which will in time form the next generation of stars.
Text credit: European Space Agency (ESA)
Image credit: ESA/Hubble & NASA, L. Stanghellini
For more information: www.nasa.gov/image-feature/goddard/2021/hubble-spots-an-i...
NGC7293, a double helix planetary nebula, is very large, and the white dwarf at its center, which is characteristic of planetary nebulae, is clearly visible with a 135mm F2 lens. The blue color of the nebula inside the ring is beautiful.
Looking closely, you can see a red nebula on the upper side of the outer ring, like an eyebrow.
SAMYANG 135mmF2
ASI662MC
UV/IR blocking filter
AZ-GTi alt-azi mode
sharpcap as platesolver
stacked by Siril 1.2 x2 drizzle
5sec x 2006 frames=about 10030sec exposure
The team overseeing ESA’s Hera asteroid mission for planetary defence pose with the spacecraft behind them in its ESTEC Test Centre cleanroom in the Netherlands.
They are joined in this photo by representatives from Tyvak International in Italy and GomSpace in Luxembourg – makers of the Milani and Juventas CubeSats respectively, which will join Hera on its journey into deep space – as well as Cheryl Reed of the Applied Physics Laboratory of Johns Hopkins University in the US – seen in the centre – who served as programme manager of NASA’s predecessor planetary defence mission DART (Double Asteroid Redirect Test).
Also represented is ISISpace in the Netherlands, manufacturer of the Deep Space Deployers that will store the miniature CubeSats during their journey to Didymos and deploy them upon arrival.
Hera and DART were conceived together and implemented as the international Asteroid Impact and Deflection Assessment (AIDA) international collaboration. Both missions are supported by a common community of planetary scientists.
On 26 September 2022 the van-sized DART spacecraft impacted the Dimorphos asteroid at around 6.1 km/s. This first test of the ‘kinetic impact’ method of planetary defence succeeded in modifying the orbit of the target asteroid around the larger Didymos body.
This October Hera will commence a two-year odyssey to the Didymos binary asteroid system to perform a close-up asteroid survey, gathering crucial missing information to turn DART’s grand-scale experiment into a well-understood and potentially repeatable planetary defence technique.
Credits: ESA
Osterholz-Scharmbeck, Germany, Canon EOS 600Dα, Ikharos ED refractor D = 80 mm f/5.6, 118 exposures of 30 s each at 1600 ISO, tracking only. Bayer averaged and binned twofold again; curve stretch. Named Helical nebula. Also known as Caldwell 63.
This structure may look like a cosmic butterfly unfurling its celestial wings, but there’s nothing gentle or delicate about this massive blowout. In Caldwell 69, also cataloged as NGC 6302 and commonly known as the Butterfly or Bug Nebula, layers of gas are being ejected from a Sun-like star that has exhausted its nuclear fuel. Medium-mass stars grow unstable as they run out of fuel, which leads to the dramatic expulsion of material into space at speeds of over a million miles per hour. Streams of energetic ultraviolet radiation cause the cast-off material to glow, but eventually the nebula will fade and leave behind only a small stellar corpse called a white dwarf. Our middle-aged Sun can expect a similar fate once it runs out of fuel in about 5 billion years.
Nebulae like Caldwell 69 are known as planetary nebulae but are not related to planets. The term was coined by astronomer William Herschel, who discovered the Butterfly Nebula in 1826. Through his small telescope, planetary nebulae had the appearance of glowing, planet-like orbs. While stars that generate planetary nebulae may have once had planets in orbit about them, scientists expect that the fiery death throes these stars undergo will ultimately destroy or leave any attending planets completely uninhabitable.
The Butterfly Nebula is located about 4,000 light-years away in the constellation Scorpius. Hubble obtained this close-up view in 2009 using its Wide Field Camera 3, installed by astronauts during the final shuttle servicing mission. These observations detected the nebula’s central star for the first time. Astronomers also compared the 2009 observations to those taken by Hubble’s Wide Field and Planetary Camera 2 in 2000 to determine the motions of the two lobes of ejected material, which appear to have been created rapidly in an event 2,250 years ago. Other parts of the nebula, specifically a dense, massive torus of material around the central star, were produced more slowly, starting about 5,000 years ago and then terminating about 2,900 years ago, preceding the lobe ejection. The delay between these events offers clues to how the stellar environment was modified as the central star evolved.
The Butterfly Nebula is highest and best viewed in the Southern Hemisphere during winter. From the Northern Hemisphere, its best season is the summer, but for most observers it will appear quite low above the southern horizon. With a magnitude of 9.5, the nebula is just visible with binoculars in dark skies, but a telescope will provide better views. In Hubble’s image above, filters that isolate emission from oxygen, helium, hydrogen, nitrogen and sulfur from the planetary nebula were used to create a composite color image. Through your telescope, you can expect to see something more reminiscent of a small, smoky eraser smudge. Use a medium to large telescope under dark skies to make out the nebula’s butterfly shape.
For more information about Hubble’s observations of Caldwell 69, see:
hubblesite.org/contents/media/images/2009/25/2616-Image.html
hubblesite.org/contents/news-releases/2004/news-2004-46.html
Credit: NASA, ESA, and the Hubble SM4 ERO Team
For Hubble's Caldwell catalog website and information on how to find these objects in the night sky, visit:
This is what crater Orontius and its surroundings looked like last night (09/09/16).
Orontius is a 122km diameter crater in the southern highlands of the Moon's near side. As seen, this part of the moon is really cratered. The Eastern part of Orontius is overlain by Huggins crater, which is also overlain by Nasidderin crater. This last one limits Miller crater.
Telescope: D=150mm, F=1200mm
Eyepiece: 7mm
The unique planetary nebula NGC 2818 is nested inside the open star cluster NGC 2818A. Both the cluster and the nebula reside over 10,000 light-years away, in the southern constellation Pyxis (the Compass).
NGC 2818 is one of very few planetary nebulae in our galaxy located within an open cluster. Open clusters, in general, are loosely bound and they disperse over hundreds of millions of years. Stars that form planetary nebulae typically live for billions of years. Hence, it is rare that an open cluster survives long enough for one of its members to form a planetary nebula. This open cluster is particularly ancient, estimated to be nearly one billion years old.
09-05
I have updated this to remove Gomez's Hamburger, which is not a planetary nebula but rather a protoplanetary disk. The picturesque Hen 2-437 has taken its place. See previous version of the collage, now renamed "99 Planetary Nebulas" (I could put "And a Protoplanetary Disk" as a subtitle, hehe!) here.
Also, Flickr seems to be allowing me to upload the 10000 pixel wide version now. The previous one was uploaded at half that size. It was bugging out or something last time I tried.
Here is a copy of the original description for your convenience, since it still applies:
Inspired by insect illustration posters, this is a large collage of planetary nebulas I put together bit by bit as I processed them. All are presented north up and at apparent size relative to one another--I did not rotate or resize them in order to satisfy compositional aesthetics (if you spot any errors, let me know). Colors are aesthetic choices, especially since most planetary nebulas are imaged with narrowband filters.
How many of them can you identify?
“Jupiter’s moon, Ganymede, is thought to have a frozen surface…a small lander dropped from an orbiting spacecraft has cracked the surface here.”
Above per the press slug of the black & white version of the photo previously posted.
Gorgeous artwork by Ken Hodges during his tenure with the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL). I wonder which moon is in the corner?
Per another press slug associated with the photo:
"CRACKING THE ICE -- One of Jupiter's large Galilean moons, Ganymede, is believed to have a largely frozen surface. Here a small lander is seen after being dropped from an orbiting spacecraft which scientists at Pasadena's Jet Propulsion Laboratory propose sending to Jupiter and a cruise of its four major moons in the late 1980s."
A wonderful assemblage of actual photographs of Ganymede’s surface:
photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/target/Ganymede
Credit: JPL Photojournal website
I'm not well-versed on canceled interplanetary exploration missions from the mid-70s, so I have no idea what is being referenced. I originally considered the "Grand Tour" concept/proposal; however, that didn't involve orbiting, nor deployment of a lander...I think. Something else I suppose...possibly a component of the “Purple Pigeon” planetary exploration effort?:
spaceflighthistory.blogspot.com/2018/12/dual-mars-rovers-...
Credit: Spaceflight History blogspot/David S. F. Portree
Indeed, on page 257 (reversed), with the following pertinent & lamentable extract:
“Immediately after Viking 1 successfully landed on Mars, JPL presented its vision for the future of solar system exploration, involving a series of amazing ‘Purple Pigeon’ missions in the 1980s that would capture the imagination of the public, in contrast to dull scientific ‘Gray Mouse’ missions. The plan included a spacecraft that would be propelled by the pressure of solar radiation to encounter comet Halley in 1986; and orbiter to map Venus by radar; a mission that enter orbit around Saturn with a Titan atmosphere-and-lander probe; an ‘asteroid tour’; a spacecraft that would enter orbit around Jupiter with a hard lander for Ganymede, the largest Jovian moon; and a robotic base to resume the exploration of the Moon. Of these, only the Venus radar mapper and the Saturn orbiter would actually fly; the latter reaching its target almost 30 years after its conception as the Cassini-Huygens mission. For Mars, the Purple Pigeon would be launched in either 1981 or 1984 with two landers, each with a pair of remotely controlled rovers that would drive up to 1,500 km over a 2-year period. The 200-250-kg rovers would carry a camera, a robotic arm and instruments for geochemical and biological analyses, and their explorations would be coordinated.”
dl.booktolearn.com/ebooks2/science/astronomy/978038749326...
Credit: Paolo Ulivi and David M. Harland/Praxis Publishing/dl.booktolearn.com website
Note the Soviet Luna 9, Luna 13 (without the protective, uprighting?, stabilizing?) petals, the (never realized) U.S. Automatic Biological Laboratory, and/or Soviet Venera 4-like appearance of the probe.
Finally & sadly, although I know it’s to be expected, I still hate it. Thank you for your service Brother, continue to Rest In Peace:
www.legacy.com/us/obituaries/latimes/name/ken-hodges-obit...
Credit: Legacy website
Disintegrating Planetary Existence.
La disminución de las criaturas extrínsecos convertibles verdades divinas cambiantes esencia inmutable,
approchant la compréhension des connaissances éminence pénétrante enluminures effets lointains,
confortatus est momenti materia nota immensitate species praedicta connaturalitate,
Vorfahren berühmten Jahrhunderte böswillige bitteren Herzen ständigen Kriege glühender Chancen Macht umgibt,
不公正的邪惡寬大嚴酷的教訓唆使暴徒脾氣敵人憤怒鞭笞孵化地塊,
блуждающих несбалансированным ОПЕРАЦИЙ безграничные основы против раструбили будущих неблагоприятных подарков,
تبقى المتمردين أصوات تشتبك قادة سنوات يرثى لها معايير الهمجية المشينة القوانين المعطلة داخل,
εξαφανίστηκε συμβούλια έσβησε το πρωί προσευχές έκπληκτος ευκαιρία για αναδύεται σφαίρες λήθαργο λόγους,
厳粛な基準は、ペノンが高いボディをヒービング武装法律を行進恐ろしい文字を破壊上昇します.
Steve.D.Hammond.
From upper left to lower right - conjunction of Mars, Moon and Venus. Taken Stockport UK. Taken 2/1/2017
As used in my two recent models Euclid R-170 mining truck and Marathon LeTourneau L-1200 wheel loader.
The planetary drive makes use of the Power Miners wheels with 48-tooth ring gear. There is a central 16-tooth gear, the sun gear, driven by the differential axle and four surrounding 16-tooth planetary gears, thus resulting in a gear ratio of 1:3.
The wheel hubs are each made of two of the Power Miners wheels with the spokes facing each other. The rubber tires are then forced on this self-made hubs.
Wonders of the Cosmos
This photo was taken by a Kowa/SIX medium format film camera and a KOWA 1:3.5/55mm lens with a Kowa L1A ø67 filter using CineStill 800T film, the negative scanned by an Epson Perfection V600 and digitally rendered with Photoshop.
Jupiter and Saturn dance aroun each other, appearing close in the sky on three consecutive days, December 20, 21, and 22, 2020. Various exposures were combined to reveal detail on the planets and make their brightest moons visible.
Tech: Nikon D850, Celestron C5 (1,250mm f/10), iOptron CEM25P drive. Multiple frames with three exposure times: 1/25 sec., ISO 250, 4 sec., ISO 4000, 8 sec., ISO 6400, processed in Lightroom, stacked in Photoshop (registered and median-combined).
The Dumbbell Nebula was the first planetary nebula ever discovered, observed by Charles Messier on July 12, 1764. Planetary nebulas are formed when a star near the end of its life sheds its outer layers, creating an expanding shell of ionized gas illuminated by ultraviolet radiation from its hot central star. In the core of the nebula sits the white dwarf stellar remnant that ended its life. It is located in the constellation Vulpecula, roughly 1,360 light-years away.
This image is the result of a dedicated 3-night imaging campaign from my backyard rollback observatory. By capturing 10 hours and 9 minutes of total data, I was able to drastically reduce noise and pull out the faint outer Hydrogen-alpha wings while preserving the vibrant, glowing Oxygen-III teal core.
• Mount: 11-year-old Celestron AVX Mount (Perfected the physical balance to get round 3-minute stars)
• Telescope: Orion 8-inch f/3.9 Astrograph (I physically cut the focuser drawtube with a bandsaw to clear the light path, upcycled an old NexStar 8i dew shield to protect the glass, and custom-cut a primary mirror mask ring to hide the factory mirror clips for sharper star spikes)
• Camera: Unmodified, uncooled Canon 60D DSLR (Managed the sensor noise by splitting my data into separate 60F and 68F temperature calibration pipelines in processing)
• Guiding: orion starshoot autoguider with 60mm guide scope
Acquisition Details:
• Total Integration Time: 10 Hours 9 Minutes
• Lights: 203 x 3-Minute Exposures at ISO 1000
• Darks: 40x per temperature night
• Bias: 50x
• Flats: 30x daylight gray flats shot through a white t shirt using a laptop screen at 1/125s
Processing Workflow
(PixInsight):
• Weighted Batch Pre-Processing (WBPP) for multi-temperature calibration
• AutomaticBackgroundExtraction (ABE) for light pollution gradients
• SPCC for true cosmic color calibration (using local Gaia DR3/SP database)
• BlurXTerminator & NoiseXTerminator AI tools
• HistogramTransformation for the permanent stretch
• (Photoshop):
• selective color black adjustments
• shadows and highlights
The small planetary nebula IC 2149 was discovered in 1906 by the Scottish-American astronomer Williamina Fleming photographically and visually-spectroscopically with an 8 inch telescope. She was an assistant to Edwart Pickering, an astronomy professor at Harvard University. The physical structure of this bipolar planetary nebula is not yet completely established. It could be a bright ring of gas that we are looking at from the side, or it could be a jet extending northeast and hitting a shock front. The distance to this PN is estimated to be about 1.1 kpc. (ref: www.deepskycorner.ch/obj/ic2149.en.php)
Observation data: J2000.0 epoch
Right ascension: 05h 56m 23.862s
Declination: 46° 06′ 17.5″
Distance: 3586 ly
Apparent magnitude (V): 10.6
Apparent dimensions (V): 12″
Constellation: Auriga
Tech Specs: Orion 8” RC Telescope, ZWO ASI2600MC camera running at -10F, 81 Minutes using 60 second exposures, Celestron CGEM-DX pier mounted, ZWO EAF and ASIAir Pro, processed in PixInsight. Image Date: November 7, 2024. Location: The Dark Side Observatory (W59), Weatherly, PA, USA (Bortle Class 4).
In memory of Nate "Nnenn" Nielson.
Will also be on display at BrickWorld in the Missing Man Formation.
1. NGC 7084 in Ha , 2. M57 Ha at f/9 no bin 720 seconds, 3.M27 in Ha, 4. M57 tricolor work, 5. Image18, 6. NGC 7139 PN in Cepheus, 7. M97 in OIII and Ha, 8. NGC6826, 9. ??
And I forgot;
www.flickr.com/photos/daveh56/4117350728/in/set-721576235...
Now I am hooked...
M27, the Dumbbell Nebula is a planetary nubula in Vulpecula. Its about 1360 ly away and is easily visible in binoculars.
42 mins captured with the H183 on an RC8. Stacked in DSS, postprocessed in Pixinsight.
Playing around with two flashlight-wand thingys (the technical term, I'm sure). David (who was the flashlight-wand man) thought this one looked a bit like Saturn's rings.
129/365?
Edited Rijksmuseum print of a "star chart" but more realistically a chart of the phases of illuminated bodies.
Image source: www.rijksmuseum.nl/en/search/objects?q=RP-P-1939-1517&...
Composite of first images captured with new camera. Saturn captured 6/16/2015
Venus and Jupiter captured 6/17/2015
ASI120MC-S
Celestron CPC800 XLT
A little deeper we go into planetary imaging. This image was shot with a dedicated mono video camera. I imaged through a series of filters (luminance, red, green, blue or LRGB). This image was caputred on 29-APR-2015.
Jupiter actually rotates very fast, a complete "day" lasts under 10 hours. Due to this, the video for each channel doesn't line up with the previous, even though they were separated by mere minutes. There's software for everything though, and here each of the channels were "derotated" back to a common position. All this helps achieve a higher level of detail.
The luminance frames were shot at roughly 170 frames per second. This is almost 7 times the framerate of my previous attempt. That, combined with a focal length of 4600mm gives a fairly pleasing result. Still, at this scale the planet is only 225 pixels across. What you see here came from a mountainous 5 GB of data, all reduced down to this 58 kB final shot! Craziness.
It's a pretty challenging process and one than I am only just starting to learn. Enjoy!
Peace and love to all, this planet has passed, this species has come a long way. "Welcome and find peace here."
Planetary nebula NGC 1514 in visible light from the PanSTARRS survey. Custom stacked and processed to mitigate most of the artifacts that are present in the automatically generated all sky mosaic.
I made this image to compare the incredible difference between the visible light view and the infrared view recently acquired by JWST.
Red: PanSTARRS i
Green: PanSTARRS r
Blue: PanSTARRS g
North is about 7.42° counter-clockwise from up.