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![M74 – A galaxy far far away.](https://www.boldly-going.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/11/M74-1-768x687.png)
M74 – A galaxy far far away.
This galaxy is only known as M74. At 32 million light-years away, it’s about as far as you can get for a halfway decent image taken from Earth. It is a “grand design” face-on spiral galaxy. Look closely and you’ll see a few more galaxies in the background that are much more distant, and therefore…
![Jupiter / Saturn conjunction](https://www.boldly-going.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/12/conjunctionproc-768x461.png)
The “Christmas Star?” Not really.
On December 21, 2020, something really special happened in the sky: Jupiter and Saturn had an approach so close that it only happens every 800 years or so. They were so close in the sky that to the unaided eye, they looked like a single, bright star. This led many to proclaim it to be…
![The Elephant’s Trunk](https://www.boldly-going.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/08/ElephantTrunk-Small-768x486.png)
The Elephant’s Trunk
Located about 2,400 light-years away in the constellation Cepheus, the “Elephant’s Trunk Nebula” has a distinct “Pillars of Creation” vibe when viewed as a long-exposure, narrowband image in the style of Hubble. Like the “Pillars of Creation” (the Eagle Nebula,) the Elephant’s Trunk is also an area of star formation, containing some young, newly-formed stars….
![The Moon is Ready for its Close-Up](https://www.boldly-going.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/09/Moon_205716_AS_P37_lapl4_ap1423-sharp-768x568.png)
The Moon is Ready for its Close-Up
Last night I set out to image Jupiter and Saturn, but both are pretty far away at this point, and the atmospheric conditions weren’t great. So I tried for the Moon instead. We take our nearest celestial neighbor for granted – there’s a whole world right next to us, waiting for us to explore it!…
![Markarian's Chain of Galaxies](https://www.boldly-going.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/MarkarianTake2-768x641.png)
Markarian’s Chain
This is actually only a portion of a string of galaxies that make up the Virgo supercluster of galaxies, around 50-60 million light-years away.
![The Whale and the Hockey Stick](https://www.boldly-going.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/WhaleCrop-768x474.png)
The Whale and the Hockey Stick
It’s not the title of a children’s story – it’s a pair of galaxies 30 million light-years away that look like, well, a whale and a hockey stick. Officially their names are NGC 4631 and NGC 4656.