Category: Astrophotos

The Sombrero Galaxy by Adam Block/Morris Wade/NOAO/AURA/NSF
Located 28 million light years from our planet and rushing away at over 700 miles a second, the Sombrero Galaxy has some impressive statistics: it spans over 50,000 light years, it contains the mass of 800 billion suns and is surrounded by over 2 thousand globular clusters – nearly ten times as many as our own Milky Way. The glowing central region is home to a monster producing a tremendous amount of X-rays. Most astronomers believe it’s an enormous black hole over a billion times more massive than our sun.

The prominent dust lane that cuts horizontally across the edge coupled with the bulge near the center gives the galaxy a hat-like appearance, thus the common name of Sombrero. Slightly too faint to be seen by naked eye, the Sombrero, which is located in the constellation of Virgo, appears to be approximately 1/5 as large as the Moon from our vantage point on Earth.

This picture was taken by Adam Block and Morris Wade using a 20 inch, f/8 RCOS Ritchey-Chretien telescope and a three mega-pixel SBIG astronomical camera at the Kitt Peak National Observatory Visitor Center outside of Tucson, Arizona. The observatory operates an Advanced Observing Program most nights of the year where interested visitors regardless of previous experience can pre-arrange to take amazing astronomical photos like this. This image was produced after two and one half hours of total exposure. Post production processing included two iterations of deconvolution, which increases sharpness, and use of DDP, a digital enhancement technique which helps display both the very faint and very bright parts of the image simultaneously.

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

M-82 by Russell Croman
About two hundred million years ago, the latest encounter between M-82 and its nearby companion M-81 occurred in relative proximity to our planet- both are only about 11 million light year’s distant which is a mere stone’s away compared to the vastness of the universe. To any eyes that could have been a witness, the meeting would have seemed to happen in extreme slow motion because it took several million years from start to finish.

Nonetheless, M-82 was hugely altered, its outer arms stripped off, its star clouds excited into producing stars and exploding others at a rate so dizzying that matter was ejected and continues pouring in spectacular particle wind driven jets. These have a red, flame-like appearance and are estimated to be ten thousand light-years long. As a result, astronomers refer to M-82 as a starburst galaxy. Its exposed core is also a powerful source of x-rays – evidencing its runaway star activity.

This striking picture was taken by Russ Croman on February 3, 2005, from his Dimension Point Observatory in Mayhill, New Mexico and required almost five hours of combinded exposure. Russ’s instruments are quite sophisticated, for example, this image was made with his remote controlled twenty inch, f/8 RCOS Ritchey-Chr?tien telescope and an eleven mega-pixel SBIG 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

Image credit: M-81 by Tom Davis.
Draw a line from the left bottom star through the top right star of the Big Dipper’s bowl then extend it roughly the same distance upward and you’ll see the location of this magnificent winter galaxy, the eighty first entry in Charles Messier’s catalog, known as M-81. It was first identified in the late 1700’s by German astronomer Johann Bode, so it’s also sometimes knownn as Bode’s Nebula.

Located only 12 million light years from Earth, a relative stone’s throw by intergalactic distances, M-81 is one of the brightest galaxies visible from in the night sky and can be spotted from a dark site, far from any city lights, without need for any optical assistance.

This picture was photographed by astrophotographer Tom Davis, from his Inkom, Idaho home in late January 2006 during a clear-sky break in an otherwise cloudy winter season. Tom photographed through a six inch, f/7 Astro-Physics refractor with a SBIG ST-10XME three mega-pixel camera.

M-81 exhibits beautifully symmetrical spiral arms and numerous dark lanes of dust in this 2.5 hour exposure. Some of these dusty ribbons may be evidence of interaction with its companion galaxy, M-82, which also shows signs of disturbance that is thought to be caused by M-81.

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

Image credit: M-42 by Rob Gendler
One of our galaxy’s nearest, and certainly most productive ranches is located only 1,500 light years from our planet, south in the sky-farmlands we call Orion the hunter.

Although invisible to unaided eyes, hold a camera’s shutter open for a while and it will reveal that the area is a vast fertile field of dust and molecular gasses where a bumper crop of new stars have been harvested and many times more are still ripening. One tract of this farm continues to produce blue ribbon winners each year for best of show – in fact, its yield is stellar! Situated below the three stars of Orion’s belt, it’s known as the Great Nebula or M-42.

Behold the flowering of nature’s bounty on an unimaginable scale – here spanning about forty five light years in width! This scene is seeded with open stellar clusters, nurseries hiding suns yet to be, fast moving jets and disks surrounding new stars, called proplyds. Much of the delicate filaments that appear to be blowing like willow branches on a breezy day result when fast moving material meets slower moving gas and dust to form massive waves. The sense of motion evident in this spectacular image is as real as it is mesmerizing.

This picture was produced by combining hundreds of separate images to form a single exposure totaling over ninety hours! It was taken by Rob Gendler (known for his green photographic thumb) from his remote controlled observatory in New Mexico’s south central mountains near the end of 2005.

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

Image credit: Gregory Cranwell. Click to enlarge

Image credit: Jamie Johnstone. Click to enlarge

Image credit: Hulett Keaton. Click to enlarge

Image credit: Hulett Keaton. Click to enlarge

Image credit: Tom Gwilym. Click to enlarge

Image credit: Mike Salway. Click to enlarge