The Bubble Nebula

Here we have another globular cluster: M53. You don’t see this one imaged too often, but it’s still quite pretty. I’ve never met a globular cluster I didn’t like. It’s one of the more distant globular clusters in our galaxy, about 60,000 light-years away.

This image was something of a happy accident – I spent a night capturing narrowband data on M16, the Eagle Nebula (home of the famous “pillars of creation”.) Of course I had to try reproducing the iconic Hubble image as best I could, but the color palette they use results in big, ugly, magenta-colored stars….

In these short summer nights, I want to take advantage of every moment of darkness. Right now, the galaxy M100 is up in the hours before midnight, and the “Tulip Nebula” – formally SH2-101 – rises just as M100 sets. So for this past week, I’ve been imaging both objects. But no more clear skies…

I don’t know why the press has latched onto the name “the green comet” for C/2022 E3 (ZTF) – most comets are green, and it’s too dim to see any color at all if you’re viewing it through binoculars or a telescope. But through 2 hours of total exposure time, the colors do emerge, and…

Comet C/2021 A1 (Leonard) is approaching the Sun – right now it’s only above the horizon in the early morning hours, but soon it will loop around and be visible in the evening. As of right now, you need a telescope to see it – it’s too dim even for binoculars. But it’s possible it…

Hoag’s Object is the weirdest galaxy I know of; it is a “ring galaxy” – a very rare galaxy type that’s just a galactic core of stars, surrounded by a ring of stars that’s seemingly disconnected from its core. This galaxy has always captured my imagination. Just look at this image from the Hubble Space…