Camera: QSI660wsg-8

Veil Nebula

Veil Nebula

Posted by | Aug 2, 2018 | , |

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 (radio source W78, or Sharpless 103), a large but relatively faint supernova remnant. The source supernova exploded circa 3,000 BC to 6,000 BC. At the time, the expanding cloud was likely as bright as a crescent Moon, remaining visible for weeks to people living at the dawn of recorded history. Today, the resulting supernova remnant, also known as the Cygnus Loop, has faded and is now visible only through a small telescope directed...

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Leo Triplet

Leo Triplet

Posted by | Jul 30, 2018 | , , |

The Leo Triplet, or the M66 Group, is a group of interacting spiral galaxies located in the northern constellation Leo. The group consists of the galaxies Messier 65, Messier 66 and NGC 3628, also known as the Hamburger Galaxy. The Leo Triplet lies at an approximate distance of 35 million light years from Earth. The three large spiral galaxies can be seen in a single field of view and are well viewed even in small telescopes. Their galactic disks are tilted at different angles when seen from Earth. NGC 3628 appears edge-on, while M65 and M66 are inclined enough...

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Pacman Nebula

Pacman Nebula

Posted by | Dec 25, 2017 | , |

NGC 281, IC 11 or Sh2-184 is a bright emission nebula and part of an H II region in the northern constellation of Cassiopeia and is part of the Milky Way’s Perseus Spiral Arm. This 30 arcmin sized nebulosity is also associated with open cluster IC 1590, several Bok globules and the multiple star. It collectively forms Sh2-184, spanning over a larger area of 40 arcmin. A recent distance from radio parallaxes of water masers at 22 GHz made during 2014 is estimated it lies 2.82 kpc. (9200 ly.) from us.Colloquially, NGC 281 is also known as the Pacman...

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Heart and Soul Nebulae

Heart and Soul Nebulae

Posted by | Nov 24, 2017 | , |

Cassiopeia is the constellation where the “heart and soul” of our galaxy can be found. Nebulae IC 1802 and IC 1848 are relatively nicknamed Heart and Soul after their heart and embryo-like shapes. Spanned over 300 light-years, it takes about 6000 years for photons from these bright emission nebulae to reach the Earth. Their bright red light is mostly emitted by energized hydrogen. The region itself contain quite a lot of star clusters as the centers of these nebulae give birth to a lot of young stars. The vanishing line in the middle of these two nebulae is actually...

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Cocoon Nebula

Cocoon Nebula

Posted by | Nov 9, 2016 | , |

In this crowded starfield covering over 2 degrees within the high flying constellation Cygnus, the eye is drawn to the Cocoon Nebula. A compact star forming region, the cosmic Cocoon punctuates a long trail of obscuring interstellar dust clouds. Cataloged as IC 5146, the nebula is nearly 15 light-years wide, located some 4,000 light years away. Like other star forming regions, it stands out in red, glowing, hydrogen gas excited by the young, hot stars and blue, dust-reflected starlight at the edge of an otherwise invisible molecular cloud. In fact, the bright star near the center of this nebula...

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