![Markarian's Chain of Galaxies](https://www.boldly-going.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/MarkarianTake2.png)
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![Cone & Fox Fur nebulas](https://www.boldly-going.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/02/cone5-768x1047.png)
The Cone & Fox (revisited)
This is the Christmas Tree Cluster (turn the picture upside down and you might see it!) But the real focus here is the Cone Nebula at the bottom of the image, and the Fox Fur Nebula in the upper-right. Lots of red Hydrogen gas here being ionized by the young stars it formed. Also visible…
![Pinwheel Galaxy](https://www.boldly-going.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/PinwheelTake3-768x904.png)
The Pinwheel Galaxy
Hope to revisit this under better conditions in the future; but this came out OK considering a bright moon was out the night it was taken. The Pinwheel Galaxy (M101) is near the end of the handle of the Big Dipper in the sky, although physically it is tens of millions of light-years more distant.
![M17 doesn’t look like a swan to me.](https://www.boldly-going.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/07/M17-768x908.png)
M17 doesn’t look like a swan to me.
M17 is commonly known as the Swan Nebula or the Omega Nebula. From this angle, I think it looks more like a crab – but “Crab Nebula” was taken! Shot over a hazy summer night, with narrowband filters for the gases of the nebula itself, and RGB natural-color filters for the stars. Presented processed with…
![M17](https://www.boldly-going.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/07/M17-Take2-768x564.png)
A Celestial Swan
This is M17, the “Swan Nebula”. Everyone seems to see something different in it! To me the whole thing looks like a swan seen from the side, but my family sees different birds within it. It’s like seeing shapes in clouds, which makes sense, as this is just a really, really big cloud of gas…
![PacMan Nebula](https://www.boldly-going.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/PacMan-768x585.png)
Playing with Pac-Man
This is NGC281, or the “Pac-Man” nebula. I think it’s one of those objects that might look a little like its name if you’re viewing it through a big telescope in a dark sky, but takes on a totally different character in long-exposure, narrowband images such as this. This is a total of 13 hours…
!["Witch's Broom" / Western Veil Nebula](https://www.boldly-going.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/WitchBroomRGBStretch-768x507.jpg)
The “Witch’s Broom”
As Halloween draws closer, this seems like an appropriate object to image: the “Witch’s Broom” nebula! Although to be honest, that bright star (Cygnus 56) looks more like an eye on some sort of fantastical, cosmic creature to me. In reality, it’s part of the larger Veil Nebula, which is a huge supernova remnant 1,400…