The Sunflower Galaxy

This is planetary nebula PK205+14.1, but its common name “The Medusa Nebula” rolls off the tongue a little better. About 1500 light-years away within the constellation Gemini, you’re seeing the gas blown off by a small star that ran out of fuel, and blew up into a red giant – later to end its life…

This gorgeous nebula, formally known as NGC281 in the constellation Cassiopeia, goes by the informal name of “The Pac-Man Nebula.” I don’t see a Pac-Man. I think it’s a case where if you look at it through a telescope with your eyes, you only see the brightest parts – and then, maybe it looks a…

Part of our Local Group of galaxies, the Triangulum Galaxy (M33) is about 3 million light years away and the most distant object visible to the naked eye under dark skies.

This young star cluster inside the Heart Nebula is lighting up the clouds of gas from which it formed. 3 hours of narrowband exposure from my suburban driveway.

Located about 34,000 light-years away within the constellation Canes Venatici, this tight ball of half a million stars formed just outside the disk of our galaxy – and so its stars never got mixed in with it. They’ve just been sitting there for over 11 billion years. One of the prettiest globular clusters in the…

The iconic Horsehead Nebula, near Orion’s belt. Shot in narrowband over two evenings.