The Whale and the Hockey Stick

Three nearby galaxies: M65, M66, and NGC 3628. All three are spiral galaxies, viewed from different angles. You can guess which one is called the “Hamburger Galaxy” 🙂

Formally this nebula is called vdB93, but more commonly it is a part of the “seagull nebula.” The larger nebula really does look like a flying bird, but it’s a little too big to fit in the field of view of my telescope – so I focused instead on its “head” where most of the…

It’s been awhile since I attempted Jupiter and Saturn… years, in fact. But last night was too good to pass up. Jupiter is just past its opposition, and it’s one of its closest approaches to Earth ever. There wasn’t a lot of turbulence in the air late last night, the Great Red Spot was out,…

The Dumbbell Nebula (M27) is what’s called a planetary nebula – but it has nothing to do with a planet. This shell of gas was blown out by a dying star; once it started to run out of Hydrogen to burn, it expanded and blew out the gases you see here. The star then collapsed…

The “California Nebula” (NGC1499) does actually kinda look like California, if you look at the whole thing. But the whole thing is too big in the sky to fit within the field of view of my telescope. So, here’s an interesting portion of it near one of its ends at least. From this angle, it…

Highlighted here is a recently discovered supernova in the galaxy M61, over 50 million light-years away! This exploding star outshines the entire core of its own galaxy, and many of the much closer stars seen within our Milky Way. The sheer power of this stellar explosion is unfathomable. It’s 50 million light-years away, which means…