Category: Astrophotos

Comet Schwassmann-Wachmann by Andrea Tamanti
Arnold Schwassmann and Arno Arthur Wachmann were two German astronomers credited with the discovery of three comets during the first third of the last century. Near the middle of this month, their third discovery will pass by Earth, twenty five times more distant than the Moon, on its latest five and a third year orbit from near the Sun to the distance of Jupiter.

Its small nucleus is approximately two tenths of a mile across – a size that is generally incapable of producing a spectacular show as it swings by Earth. Yet, two orbits ago, in 1995, the comet did something unexpected – it brightened considerably as it was observed breaking apart. This year, this comet will pass closer to Earth than any in the past twenty-five years. But this is no typical cometary flyby – Comet Schwassmann-Wachmann 3 has become a swarm of small comets!

During the 1995 passage, the nucleus of this comet split apart into three objects traveling single file but when it passed Earth during the fall of 2000, four separate nuclei were observed. Images captured in late March of this year revealed eight individual pieces and by April 10, scientists could see nineteen fragments and many of these were spawning even smaller pieces. Each piece is a mini-comet with its own star-like nucleus and tail.

Closest approach to the Sun will occur on June 7. But on May 8, a few days before their closest approach to Earth, the pieces of Comet Schwassmann-Wachmann will pass very close to the Ring Nebula in the constellation Lyra. Some fragments may even appear to pass over this famous night sky landmark. For folks living near Paris, this will occur around 5AM in the morning and for those who live on the southeast coast of the United States, a good view of this event will be happen about 11PM on May 7.

This excellent close up picture is of the comet’s “C” fragment- one of the three first seen in 1995. It was taken by Andrea Tamanti on April 24, 2006 at about 2AM local time from his home about 20 miles outside Rome, Italy. Andrea used a ten-inch Schmidt-Cassegrain telescope and a 1.3 mega pixel astronomical camera. Four separate exposures totaling 36 minutes were required to produce this full color image.

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Written by R. Jay GaBany

The Ring Nebula by Stefan Heutz. Click to enlarge
When stars similar to our Sun have exhausted their nuclear fuel, they release their outer layer into a beautiful expanding sphere that resembles a planet through a small telescope. The Ring Nebula, pictured here, is one of the most famous examples in the northern sky. But it’s not a sphere. There is another geometry that more accurately explains its beautiful appearance.

Riding high in the northern sky near the bright white star Vega, the Ring Nebula is one of the most favorite deep sky objects targeted visually by backyard stargazers. It can be seen through telescopes with apertures as small as four inches. But larger telescopes can reveal the faint planet sized central star that created this night sky spectacle. The Ring Nebula was discovered about 200 years ago by French astronomer Charles Messier, an avid comet hunter, and made its way into his catalog used to keep track of false comets as item number 57.

Recent imagery by the Hubble Space Telescope has confirmed that the Ring Nebula is not spherical in shape; it is more like a tube that is slightly constricted in the middle so that it resembles a stretched hourglass. By chance alone, Earth is positioned so that we can look almost straight through from one end. Tubular shapes like this are common throughout the universe because thick disks of gas tend to expand outward very slowly leaving the material free to become extended perpendicularly. One of the other more spectacular examples of this shape is exhibited by the Little Dumbbell Nebula. It’s located in the constellation of Perseus and is positioned so that we have a side view.

The diameter of the nebula’s walls is approximately one light year across. The view we see is actually quite ancient because the light reaching our eyes today departed for Earth about 2,000 years ago.

This beautiful image represents one of the best views taken from our planet’s surface. It was produced by German astro-photographer Stefan Heutz from his backyard imaging location though an eleven-inch Schmidt-Cassegrain telescope and a 1.5 mega-pixel camera. The light for this image was gathered on June 7, 2005 and represents 46 minutes of total exposure.

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Written by R. Jay GaBany

Zodiacal Light by Tony and Daphne Hallas

The night sky, from a dark location, is filled with many sights full of wonder to urban dwellers: the slow moving glint of a satellite solar array, the flash and occasional sonic repercussion of a meteor flailing overhead, the arc of combined luminosity from the Milky Way’s remote suns and the glow from high altitude cirrus present in Earth’s atmosphere. But at certain times of the year a few hours after sunset or before sunrise, a soft triangular shape will appear from the horizon extending upward that may lead you to believe the moon or the sun is about to rise. This explanation has passed through the minds of observers since antiquity and is called the false dawn… but, it is another thing altogether.

The Sun rules over a vast empire in the sky and around it circles a cortege of loyal subjects – noble planets with waists of varying proportion, their attendant moons in tow like guards and helpful servants, countless asteroids which make up the sky’s gentry and intermittent tourists on holiday from the kingdom’s outer provinces- the comets. But in between the sun and just outside the influence of Earth’s orbit is a vast cloud of interplanetary dust– crumbs fallen from the table during the feast of the solar system’s creation. Each tiny particle may be separated from its neighbor by up to five miles, thus this nebula is very thin. But its presence is apparent when sunlight glints off each fragment and you are standing beneath an exceptionally dark, clear night sky at the right time of the year.

Because the dust that creates this phenomenon resides within the same plane as the planets, it projects itself against the same constellations that the planets also pass, thus it is now known as the Zodiacal Light.

For those in the Northern Hemisphere, the best time to see this unique apparition is a few hours after sunset in the west between February and March and a few hours before dawn during October, over in the east. If you live in the Southern Hemisphere the best western view is during the evening from August to September or in the east during the early morning hours throughout April.

Over time, the dust that forms this cloud slowly spirals inward toward the sun. It is believed that the cloud regenerates itself from the debris that results in the collision of larger orbiting particles and from the tails of comets.

This exceptional picture of the Zodiacal Light was recently produced by Tony and Daphne Hallas from a location at Modoc Plateau, which lies in the northeast corner of California as well as parts of Oregon and Nevada. This area is one of the darkest sites in the continental United States and is home to a mile-high expanse of lava flows, cinder cones, pine forests and seasonal lakes. Daphne and Tony took this image with a Canon 20D digital camera using a 16-35mm f/2.8 lens.

Do you have photos you’d like to share? Post them to the Universe Today astrophotography forum or email them, and we might feature one in Universe Today.

Written by R. Jay GaBany

Leo 1 by Bernhard Hubl
Astronomers are beginning to see a pattern in what was previously viewed as the random distribution of galaxies tossed across the universe. Emerging is an understanding that the galaxies are distributed on the surface of huge bubbles whose interiors are void or contain material yet to be discovered. These bubbles are of various sizes but, in general, there are lots of them thus a helpful mental image of the universe’s organization may be something similar in appearance to soap suds. Where the edges of these bubbles meet, groups of galaxies tend to collect in bunches and this agrees with the observational evidence.

Our home Galaxy is called the Milky Way because the ancient Greeks rationalized its broad band of light arcing across the night sky was milk from the breast of the Queen of Gods, Hera. The Milky Way galaxy and thirty or more others which include M31, its two large satellites and M33 comprise what’s known as the Local Group. The Local Group of galaxies, in turn, interacts with four other nearby galaxy concentrations and it is thought that each of these clusters probably exchange members over some regular, but enormous, time scale.

Some of the members of the Local Group are actually satellites of our galaxy. Almost all of them are called dwarfs due to their small size and irregular shape. So far, twelve, maybe thirteen, have been identified, including the Large and Small Magellanic Clouds – more will likely be discovered. One of the most distant of these attendants, pictured here, is located about 900,000 light years from Earth and is called Leo 1.

Leo 1 was unknown until 1950 and was only visible through long exposure photographs until it was finally visually observed around 1990. The challenge with seeing or photgraphing this galaxy has less to do with its brightness than with the fact that it appears extremely close to the brightest star in the constellation Leo, which is called Regulus. Regulus is thousands of times more brilliant and the glare seen in optical instruments can wash out the presence of this small galaxy.

This remarkable photograph was produced by astronomer, Bernhard Hubl, at his imaging site in Schlierbach, Austria over a period of three nights during mid-March, 2006. This picture required over eight hours of exposure and was produced through a four inch aperture refractor with a 2 mega-pixel astronomical camera.

Do you have photos you’d like to share? Post them to the Universe Today astrophotography forum or email them, and we might feature one in Universe Today.

Written by R. Jay GaBany

Abell 34 by Jim Misti
Most stars do not end their existence in a cataclysmic supernova explosion. For example, our Sun is more typical and someday, in the remote future, the location of our local star will look something like this picture of a distant planetary nebula.

Suns are born from vast clouds of dust and gas that gather in the dark places between the stars. Gravity causes these interstellar vapors to collapse inward until the pressure causes high enough temperatures at its center to fuse hydrogen, the universe’s basic building block, into helium – an event that also releases gamma-ray photons. These photons can take a million years to travel outward through the overlying matter until they reach the surface and escape into space as visible light. The push of the photon’s rush to make an exit also stops the cloud’s collapse and thus what began as thin gas and dust becomes a shining star illuminating the heavens. For billions of years stars, similar to our sun, shine predictably until the hydrogen starts to give out. Then through a series of steps, helium is fused into a succession of elements and the star expands enormously; eventually throwing off its outer surface like a spherical shell. This ends the star’s previous life and marks its passing with a ghostly shroud known as a planetary nebula.

George Abell was a professor at UCLA and an admired research astronomer who began is career as a tour guide at the Griffith Observatory in Los Angeles. As an astronomer, he was best known for his work at Mt. Palomar with the first photographic sky survey conducted in the 1950’s. He cataloged galaxy clusters and contributed to our understanding of their formation and evolution. He also compiled a catalog of 86 faint planetary nebulas discovered as he studied the sky plates taken with Palomar’s 48 inch Oschin Schmidt Telescope.

This planetary nebula is number 34 in Abell’s listing and is located in the constellation of Hydra. It is very faint and has a low surface brightness thus making it very hard to see or photograph, even with a large telescope.

Astronomer Jim Misti produced this exceptional image over three nights in February 2006 using his personal 32-inch telescope located in a dark remote spot in Arizona. The light grasp of Jim’s instrument is several thousand times greater than the unaided eye yet the faintness of this nebula still required over four hours of accumulated exposure time to take this full color picture. Notice, also, the small galaxies located much farther in the distance.

Do you have photos you’d like to share? Post them to the Universe Today astrophotography forum or email them, and we might feature one in Universe Today.

Written by R. Jay GaBany

The Vela Nebula Complex by Johannes Schedler
Floating like a vast, thin wreath on a sea filled with colorful, bright stars, these wisps and tendrils are all that’s left to mark the ancient resting place of an exploded sun. The star detonated in a flash of light that would have rivaled the full moon in the sky. The accompanying thumbnail image is just a small part of a much larger collection of structures that, combined, form a unique northern night sky object known as the Veil Nebula Complex.

Located in the constellation of Cygnus, the Veil Nebula Complex floats approximately 1,400 light years from our home planet; the remains of a supernova event that took place in pre-history, between 5,000 and 10,000 years ago. It’s estimated that the light from this explosion was visible in the night sky for several months and easily cast shadows on the ground for over a week after it initially detonated. Over time, the energy and material that was ejected into the inter-stellar medium has now expanded until it covers an area over six times the diameter of the full moon.

This spectacular image is particularly unique in that the colors displayed are not natural- they have been scientifically enhanced through the use of filters and special image processing. For example, the red coloration indicates areas of the nebula where hydrogen gas is plentiful and has been excited into radiating a crimson color. The blue and green areas represent places where enormous amounts of molecular oxygen are the primary nebula constituent. This picture is a good example of the way science uses light and hue to understand the makeup of the cosmos through the use of special filters that only transmit the glow of specific elements. By assigning unique colors to each element, a map of its component distribution can be created, thus this process is also known as mapped coloring.

Johannes Schedler produce this picture, actually a mosaic of six separate images seamlessly stitched together, from his backyard observatory located in Wildon, a small town near the city of Graz, in south-eastern Austria. The pictures were taken through a 16-inch (410mm) telescope operating at f/3. For each of the six images used in this huge sky panorama, Johannes gathered the ancient light for over three and a half hours with a CCD camera. In total, the entire mosaic represents a twenty-two hour exposure!

Do you have photos you’d like to share? Post them to the Universe Today astrophotography forum or email them, and we might feature one in Universe Today.

Written by R. Jay GaBany

The Planet Jupiter by Mike Salway
Thirty years ago the clearest views of the planet Jupiter could only be obtained from multi-million dollar robotic space probes, like the twin Voyager missions sent to survey the outer planets. As recently as five years ago, the atmosphere still hopelessly blurred views of Jupiter, or any other planet, seen from the surface of the Earth through telescopes. All of that has changed thanks to the digital revolution in photography. Now, people with the interest, a modest telescope and a common web camera can learn to take planetary portraits that rival some the best from NASA.

The accompanying photographs of Jupiter and its moon Ganymede, in orbit around the Sun, 365 million miles from our planet, were produced by Mike Salway, an Australian amateur astronomer using a unguided 10 inch Dobsonian telescope and a ToUCam web camera. The pictures were produced from images taken on March 12, 2006. The clarity of each image is similar to pictures taken by Voyager after it had traveled over 90 percent of the distance from Earth to Jupiter.

Taking planetary images from the ground using modest equipment is still a daunting challenge that requires patience, ingenuity and talent. For example, each of the three pictures featured here required Mike to take 450 separate exposures at five frames per second over a space of ninety seconds. Using commercially available software to pick out the best frames, Mike was able to identify the clearest images from each set, digitally combine then enhance them and produce one final picture.

Mike not only captured this trio of beautiful images, he created a short sixteen-frame movie showing the planet in rotation! Each frame is separated by approximately five minutes; therefore the movie spans the planet’s rotation over a period of almost an hour and a half. The clarity of this animation also harks back to those taken as Voyager approached Jupiter in 1979.

One of the three images has been arrowed to indicate the location of a new storm in Jupiter’s atmosphere that has taken on the same hues and characteristics of the Great Red Spot – a storm that has persisted for over three hundred years. Nicknamed Red Jr, this new disturbance is still quite huge and capable of swallowing several Earths.

Do you have photos you’d like to share? Post them to the Universe Today astrophotography forum or email them, and we might feature one in Universe Today.

Written by R. Jay GaBany

The Vela Supernova Remnant by Loke Kun Tan
About 11,000 years ago, around the dawn of human history, a fantastic stellar explosion took place relatively nearby our place in the galaxy. It left an aftermath covering nearly 40 degrees of the sky (the Moon and Sun extend only 1/2 a degree, for comparison), an aftermath captured by astrophotographer Loke Kun Tan.

The brilliance of this supernova explosion would have rivaled the quarter moon. According to an article in Science Digest, defects in the human cornea would have given this explosion the appearance of a dancing fire, hung low in the heavens if viewed from a location near the Mediterranean, shooting sparks of intense color in every direction like a fountain about the size of the full moon. The landscape would have been flooded with bands of shadows and pulsing illumination. It would have both awed and terrified any observer in antiquity.

Today, we can still see the remains of the conflagration as the Vela Supernova Remnant. It is located within the Gum Nebula, itself the result of an earlier star detonation. The remnant is in the southern constellation of Vela, about 1,300 light years distant – more than three times closer than the famous supernova seen by the Chinese in 1054, which, today, is marked by the Crab Nebula. This is a picture of the remnant’s central region; a growing shell of gas and dust that has enlarged to over 1,000 light years in diameter putting its leading edge only about 300 or 400 lights years from Earth and still expanding in all directions.

As the fast moving energy thrown off in the explosion slams into much slower moving gas and dust that occurs naturally throughout the space between the stars, it creates these beautiful shock wave fronts which glow like sinuous threads. Another view shows an extension of the upper part.

At the heart of the remnant glows a pulsar, the core of the star that exploded. It spins at over ten times per second and is the source of intense X-ray radiation.

Loke Kun Tan recently produced this image from thirty three separate shots that were digitally combined to create the equivalent of a six hour exposure. It was taken during a 2004 trip to La Frontera in Alcohuaz, Chile and was captured through a 4-inch refractor, designed specifically for wide field astrophotography, with an eleven mega-pixel astronomical camera.

Do you have photos you’d like to share? Post them to the Universe Today astrophotography forum or email them, and we might feature one in Universe Today.

Written by R. Jay GaBany

Comet Pojmanski by R. Jay GaBany
Set your alarm clocks between 4:30 and 5:00AM sometime over the next two or three days because a bright new comet that can be seen with the unaided eye, even better through binoculars, is dancing head first near the horizon almost due east before sunrise. The comet is named Pojmanski and has been given the official designation of C/2006 A1. It was discovered earlier this year on January 2.

Grzegorz Pojmanski, of the Warsaw University Astronomical Observatory in Poland, first spotted this comet in a photograph taken from Chile when it glowed around magnitude 12 – thousands of times too faint to be seen visually without telescopic aide.

As the comet has moved closer to Earth on a journey that will swing it around the sun, its actual brightness has surpassed all original estimates so that by the morning of March 3, it was still between magnitude 5.5 and 6. That makes it as visible as any of the stars in the Little Dipper. The comet’s closest approach to Earth is on March 5 when it will be about 62 million miles away. It should become easier to spot until March 8, because it will rise earlier and earlier in the morning but it will also become dimmer.

The comet is now a pre-dawn object that rises almost directly in the east a few minutes before 4AM – left of a dazzling white star that is actually the planet Venus. It appears as a tiny star when viewed straight on but through binoculars, a tail that points away from the direction of sunrise is evident. Each day it will rise earlier than the previous and by March 8, Comet Pojmanski will have risen to a fourth of the distance between the horizon and directly overhead at the start of dawn.

I took this image on the morning of March 3, 2006 from my remotely controlled observatory in south central New Mexico located at an elevation of about 7,200 feet above sea level. I combined twelve separate images taken through red, green and blue filters to create this full color portrait. Digital processing enabled me to freeze the comet’s motion that occurred during the thirty-minute exposure period. The picture was taken through a twenty inch Ritchey-Chretien telescope with an eleven-mega pixel camera specially designed for astronomical imaging.

Do you have photos you’d like to share? Post them to the Universe Today astrophotography forum or email them, and we might feature one in Universe Today.

Written by R. Jay GaBany

RS Ophicuchi by John Chumack
On February 12, Universal time, two Japanese observers, Kiyotaka Kanai and Hiroaki Narumi, noticed that a star normally too dim to be seen by the unaided eye in the constellation of Ophiucus had suddenly grown much brighter. It was now about as visible as the star in the handle of the Little Dipper that is nearest Polaris, the northern pole star. The star is named RS Ophicuchi and it has done this before in 1898, 1933, 1945 (this date is suspected), 1958, 1967 and 1985.

RS Ophicuchi is a double star – one’s a red giant the other’s a white dwarf. Material from the red giant is constantly being pulled toward the dwarf where it accumulates to form a flat, ring-like disk that reaches to its surface. Over time the pressure within and temperature of the accretion disk increases until it’s enough to ignite a thermonuclear explosion of unimaginable proportions. We see that flash of brilliance, this one was located three thousand light years in the distance, as a nova.

Novas only happen in stellar pairs and represent the aches and pains of older stars. Unlike supernova, which occur in single, massive stars, novas seldom result in the annihilation of either.

As of last weekend, the brilliance of the nova had started to fade and will continue to do so gradually for quite some time. During the 1985 episode, it took almost a year and a half before the stars had returned to their normal faintness as seen here on Earth. Of course, now that the previous material has been destroyed, new material will slowly start to re-accumulate on the dwarf star and begin a new cycle that will lead up to the next explosion.

John Chumack took this picture of RS Ophicuchi, three days after its discovery from a remotely controlled observatory in New Mexico. John took sixteen 30 second pictures then combined them to create this full color image that is the equivalent of a single eight minute exposure. This image covers a sky area that is approximately four full moons wide using a Takahashi Sky90 telescope and a SBIG three mega-pixel camera.

Do you have photos you’d like to share? Post them to the Universe Today astrophotography forum or email them, and we might feature one in Universe Today.

Written by R. Jay GaBany