Tagged: Nebula - Adam Lundie - Eatons Hill Observatory

NGC 1999 is a dusty blue reflection nebula, embedded in the hydrogen dust cloud of Orion. This narrow band enhanced image shows the light blue NGC 1999 at the center, with the edge of M42 (the Orion Nebula) at the far right. Also shown in the image is the waterfall nebula, the magenta shock wave between NGC 1999 and M42.

R Aquarii is a symbiotic star system where a white dwarf is drawing material from its binary red giant companion. The extra material is then ejected into space in loops and jets.

After a brief hiatus from astronomy to build a new, larger observatory, I've chosen another difficult target that was surprisingly bright.

The Seagull Nebula a region of nebulosity that lies 1820 light years away, along the border between the constellations Monoceros and Canis Major. It includes the neighboring regions of star clusters, dust clouds and reflection nebulae centered around IC 2177.

Adjacent to the bright blue supergiant star Alnitak shines the ionised hydrogen of the Flame and Horsehead nebulae.

The Orion Nebula is one of the brightest nebulae in the sky, visible to the naked eye. It is seen as the fuzzy middle star in the sword of Orion. The nebula is 1344 light years away and is one of the closest star forming regions to Earth.

Almost everyone has a go at imaging the Trifid nebula, which is composed of 3 different type of nebulae; emission, reflection, and absorption. When I noticed some faint red glow in the background, I decided to try integrating some long hydrogen emission line frames to see if I could get any structure out of it. I'm quite happy with the resulting background structures!

I was lucky enough to snag a second hand 900mm refractor at a good price. I needed a bright target to test it with. The Lagoon Nebula is a giant interstellar cloud around 4077 light years away, classified as an emission nebula and as an H II region.

The unusual shape of the Red Rectangle is likely due to a thick dust torus which pinches the otherwise spherical outflow into tip-touching cone shapes. Because we view the torus edge-on, the boundary edges of the cone shapes seem to form an X. The distinct rungs suggest the outflow occurs in fits and starts.

My original target was the Helix Nebula, but after spending most of Saturday night trying to work out how to use off axis guiding, I gave up and noticed Orion was rising. A nice bright target to use the drift aligned mount on.

A DSLR image of the swan nebula when I was first learning how to do astrophotography

Stars such as our Sun do not contain enough mass to finish their lives in the glorious explosions known as supernovae. However, they are still able to salute their imminent demise into dense, Earth-sized embers called white dwarfs by first expelling colourful shells of gas known as planetary nebulae.

IC 4601 is a reflection nebula within the larger Blue Horsehead Nebula. Reflection nebulae are actually made up of dust that normally appears dark but can reflecting the light of nearby stars.

The Saturn Nebula is a tiny but complex planetary nebula, ~4000 light years away in Aquarius. The Saturn Nebula gets its name from its resemblance to the planet Saturn to the observer.

The dark molecular clouds of Barnard 92 (center) and 93 (left) are superimposed over the Messier 24 Sagittarius Star Cloud.