QHY163M | GeoAstro

Camera: QHY163M

California Nebula

Posted by David Dvali | Apr 25, 2017 | Astrophoto |

The California Nebula (NGC 1499) is an emission nebula located in the constellation Perseus. Drifting through the Orion Arm of the spiral Milky Way Galaxy, this cosmic cloud by chance echoes the outline of California on the west coast of the United States. Our own Sun also lies within the Milky Way’s Orion Arm, only about 1,500 light-years from the California Nebula. Also known as NGC 1499, the classic emission nebula is around 100 light-years long. It glows with the red light characteristic of hydrogen atoms recombining with long lost electrons, stripped away (ionized) by energetic starlight. Because of...

Rosette Nebula

Posted by David Dvali | Nov 10, 2016 | Astrophoto, Clusters, Nebulae |

The Rosette Nebula is not the only cosmic cloud of gas and dust to evoke the imagery of flowers – but it is the most famous. At the edge of a large molecular cloud in Monoceros, some 5,000 light years away, the petals of this rose are actually a stellar nursery whose lovely, symmetric shape is sculpted by the winds and radiation from its central cluster of hot young stars. The stars in the energetic cluster, cataloged as NGC 2244, are only a few million years old, while the central cavity in the Rosette Nebula, cataloged as NGC 2237,...