A detailed look at a nebula, known as the Bubble Nebula, or Sharpless 162 or NGC 7635, was taken with with a QHY9 Camera and a Meade LX200 GPS 12 in" telescope. Credit and copyright: J-P Metsävainio.
We’ve featured the unique 3-D work of J-P Metsävainio previously, but it’s time to check in and see what he’s been working on lately. Metsävainio creates incredible 3-D animations from his own astronomical images, which he calls “3-D experiments” that are a mixture of science and an artistic impression. “I collect distance and other information before I do my 3-D conversion,” he told Universe Today via email earlier this year. “Usually there are known stars, coursing the ionization, so I can place them at right relative distance. If I know a distance to the nebula, I can fine tune distances of the stars so, that right amount of stars are front and behind of the object.”
Above is the animation of the Bubble Nebula, below is his extremely detailed image:
His observations and images are simply stunning, but he says his 3-D animations are “a personal vision about shapes and volumes, based on some scientific data and an artistic impression.”
The crescent Moon and Venus as seen from São Paulo, Brazil on September 8, 2013. Credit and copyright: Ednilson Oliveira
Did you notice a bright “star” close to the Moon last night (September 8, 2013)? People around the world had the treat of seeing the waxing crescent Moon have the planet Venus snuggle up close… or in some places, the Moon actually passed in front of Venus, in what is known as an occultation. Also, on Saturday, the bright star Spica added to the scene.
Thanks to our readers from around the world for sharing their images and videos!
Moon and Venus conjunction over the Eternal Flame of the 9/11 Memorial located here in San Antonio, Texas. Credit and copyright: Adrian New.The Moon and Venus on September 8, 2013. Credit and copyright: Wes Schulstad.The waxing crescent Moon near Venus on the evening of Sunday, September 8, 2013, as seen from southern Alberta, Canada. Credit and copyright: Alan Dyer/Amazing Sky Photography.
Here’s a video showing the occultation of Venus by the Moon, photographed by Fabian Gonzalez.
The 12% waxing crescenet Moon and Venus on September 8, 2013 as seen from Shot in Kennesaw, Georgia. Credit and copyright: Stephen Rahn.The new Moon with Venus on its right. Taken from the dark sky preserve at the Nutwood Observatory in central Ontario, Cananda. Credit and copyright: Brian McGaffney.A close-up of September’s waxing crescent Moon with Venus on September 8, 2013. Credit and copyright: Tavi Greiner.A calm and peaceful moment on a beautiful beach, with a planetary alignment between planets, Saturn (in the top left corner), Venus and Spica star (in the center image), and the crescent Moon above the horizon, as seen on September 7, 2013. Credit and copyright: Miguel Claro.Conjunction of Saturn, Venus, and the 2.5 day old Moon on Saturday, September 7, 2013. Spica sneaks into the photo beneath Venus. Taken from Salem, Missouri. Credit and copyright: Joe Shuster, Lake County Astronomical Society.
Video of the occultation of Spica by the Moon on September 7, 2013 from Israel, taken by Gadi Eidelheit. Read more about at his website, VenusTransit.
Beautiful Moon & Venus as seen from Mumbai on 8th September 2013. Credit and copyright: Henna Khan.The crescent Moon and Venus as seen from central Illinois. Credit: Nancy Atkinson.
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A detailed image of the Sun's photosphere taken near Paris, France, with an added detail: at 747 airplane. Credit and copyright: Sebastien Lebrigand.
Watch out! That plane is heading straight for a sunspot! Astrophotographer Sebastien Lebrigand was taking some detailed images of the Sun and when something zoomed into his field of view, a 737 airplane. He was about 70 km outside of Paris France when he took this image, using a CANON EOS 500D camera and a 114 mm refractor telescope with a 1200mm focal length. Exposure: 1 / 3200s in 100 iso. The image was taken on September 5, 2013.
Nice catch!
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Closeup of the crescent Moon on October 12, 2012. Credit and copyright: Wes Schulstad
If you want to see detail on the Moon, usually the best times and places to look are when the Moon is in a crescent phase, and near the terminator. These recent images uploaded to Universe Today’s Flickr page will attest to that! Enjoy the views:
Closeup of the Moon showing Endymion, Atlas and the distant Mare Humboldtianum. Credit and copyright: Danny Robb.Lunar terminator mosaic, August 26th 2013. Credit and copyright: Russell Bateman.64% illuminated waning gibbous Moon on August 26, 2013. Credit and copyright: Themagster3 on Flickr.Plato to Aristillus to Aristoteles in Color – 8/26/13. Credit and copyright: Fred Locklear.Waning crescent Moon on August 30, 2013. Credit and copyright: Sculptor Lil on Flickr.
To see more information on each image, click on the image to see it on Flickr.
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M33, the Triangulum Spiral Galaxy, seen here in a 4.3 hour exposure image. Astronomers used JWST to examine a section of its south spiral arm to search out and find nearly 800 newly forming stars. Credit and copyright: John Chumack.
Take a look at this stunning new close-up of M33, the Triangulum Galaxy by one of our favorite astrophotographers, John Chumack. “The thing that amazes me about M33 other than it being our neighbor and a beautiful spiral galaxy, is that M33 is loaded with 292 pink nebulae (HII Star Formation Regions),” John said via email, “the largest pink nebula being NGC-604, which is actually visible in a 6″ diameter telescope…to be able to see nebula visually in other galaxies — now that is really cool!”
Your challenge for the day: how many nebulae can you count in this beautiful new image? There are also star clusters and even a few globular clusters in the image, as well.
M33 is about 2.6 million light years away and is the second closest spiral galaxy to us, next to the Andromeda galaxy. “Due to its very low surface brightness it can be a challenge to see from or nearby cities,” John explained, “but from a dark location on a perfectly clear night and assuming you have 20/20 vision, it is the furthest object the Human eye could see into deep space without optical aid.”
John used a QHY8 CCD + 16″ reflector in this 4.3 hour exposure. Pretty in pink!
John Chumack’s daughter Kayla took this picture of her Dad holding a 16×24 print of M33. Image courtesy of John Chumack.
John said he always runs his images by his wife and children to get their final okay, if it looks good to them, then he knows it’s a keeper! His daughter Kayla liked this one enough to want to take a picture of her Dad holding a print of it.
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A double rainbow spans above Planetario Alfa observatory in Mexico on August 24, 2013. Credit and copyright: César Cantú.
Astrophotographer César Cantú was in the right place at the right time this weekend! He took this beautiful photo of a double rainbow all the way across the sky — and directly over the Planetario Alfa observatory in Mexico, part of the Alfa Planetarium Science and Technology Museum, near San Pedro Garci’a, in the northeast part of Mexico.
Of course, this is reminiscent of the most famous double rainbow…at least on You Tube:
Update: It must be double rainbow season. Astrophotographer Göran Strand from Sweden took the image below on August 19,2013:
Double rainbow over a marina in Sweden on August 19, 2013. Credit and copyright: Göran Strand
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Full disk view of the Sun on August 20, 2013. The prominences on the right side of the Sun in this image are the ones captured in the closeup image above. Credit and copyright: Michel Collart.
This close-up movie of looping, dancing prominences on the Sun looks like something you’d see from one of the spacecraft we have studying the Sun, such as the Solar Dynamics Observatory. However, the images were taken from Earth by amateur astronomer Michel Collart from France. He was able to capture incredible detail (see his list of equipment below) of this region on the Sun’s western limb, and in a series of 120 frames, shows a lot of activity taking place on the morning of August 20, 2013.
It is easy to become mesmerized watching the matter ejected at high speed from the surface, then falling back down due to the Sun’s gravity.
“We saw beautiful loops this morning, and as a bonus, we see a beautiful ejection of matter from the left and return to its starting point — great!” Collart posted on the WebAstro Forum.
And while these loops are huge – see the image below comparing the size of the Earth and Moon to the prominences — this is just a small area of the Sun.
See the full view of the Sun taken by Michel:
Full disk view of the Sun on August 20, 2013. The The ‘small’ prominences on the right side of the Sun in this image are the ones captured in the closeup image above — not the bigger prominences on the left side. Credit and copyright: Michel Collart.
And the comparison of sizes between the loops, Earth, the Moon and the distance between the Earth and Moon:
Size comparison of the looping prominences on the Sun on August 20, 2013. Credit and copyright: Michel Collart.
Michel told Universe Today that he’s been imaging the Sun for about 15 years and this is the first time he’s been able to take images of them. “These loops are very rare to catch,” he said.
The series of 120 frames (1 per 30 seconds, so 1 hour total) were taken by Michel on Tuesday August 20th, between 7:25 and 8:25 UTC on Tuesday, August 20, 2013, about the same time the Sun blasted a coronal mass ejection with billions of tons of solar particles toward Earth at the mind-boggling speed of 3.3 million km/h (2 million mph).
Here’s a video version of the loops, complete with music:
Michel Collart’s equipment and methods:
Michel Collart’s telescope and imaging set up. Image courtesy Michel Collart.
Takahashi Refractor TOA 130mm, Coronado Solarmax90 double stacked with Coronado PST etalon and blocking filter BF15, Televue 1.8x Barlow and Point Grey Camera Grasshopper3 ICX674 sensor.
120 videos of 10s spaced by 20s at 40 frames/s taken the 20/08/2013 between 7:25 and 8:25 GMT.
Processing: Autostakkert2 + Registax6 and export as video on Registax5, Finalizing the video in VirtualDub and export GIF
Thanks to Michel for allowing Universe Today to share his wonderful work!
The star Alnitak and Flame Nebula in Orion. Credit and copyright: César Cantú.
Astrophotographer César Cantú from Mexico captured this beautiful view of the star Alnitak and Flame Nebula, both in the constellation Orion. Alnitak is the southern star in Orion’s belt, and is an extremely hot star, with a temperature of 29,500 ± 1000 K. It shines brilliantly, and is about 10,000 times more luminous than the Sun. This star also makes the Flame Nebula appear to be blazing, too. Wind and radiation from Alnitak blasts away electrons from the gas in the Flame nebula, causing it to become ionized and glow in visible light.
This gorgeous view was captured on August 11, 2013.
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The Milky Way arches over Jim Edgar Panther Creek State Park in Central Illinois. Credit and copyright: Ben Romang.
Amateur astronomers from Illinois frequently venture out to Jim Edgar Panther Creek State Park, a 26-square mile conservation area of prairie and forest, famous for having the darkest skies in the state. But of course, lots of folks head out to the park to enjoy other things like the picturesque landscapes, the wildlife, and the solitude.
This past week my friend Ben Romang went to do some camping at Panther Creek, and with a borrowed camera, wanted to make his first attempt at photographing the night sky. He was hoping to nab some Perseid meteors, but instead was overwhelmed with the beauty of the expansive sky overhead. For his first try, I think he did a pretty good job of capturing the view, don’t you?
Ben used a Canon 7D, with an EF 24-70mm lens.
If you’d like to see these amazing dark skies for yourself, the perfect time would be during the annual Illinois Dark Sky Star Party, held every year by the local astronomy group in my area, the Sangamon Astronomical Society. It’s a great event, with a wonderful observing site, lots of room for camping, great food, interesting speakers (so claims their website — I’ve spoken there a few times!), and very friendly folks who are passionate about amateur astronomy. This year the Dark Skies Party is October 3-6, 2013. Find out more about the event here.
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A composite of stacked images of the Perseid Meteor Shower on August 11, 2013 seen from Lindisfarne (Holy Island) off the northeast coast of England. Credit and copyright: Peter Greig.
The Perseid Meteor Shower peaks tonight, but already astrophotographers have been out, enjoying the view of a little cosmic rain. This weekend provided good views for many, as these images and videos will attest. We’ll keep adding more images as they come in, but enjoy these wonderful images we’ve received so far. Our lead image is a wowza from Peter Greig from the UK. He traveled to an island off the coast of England and found exactly what he was looking for.
“This is the exact image that I imagined and planned to come home with from that trip,” Peter said via Flickr. “It is a composite of stacked images (or pieces of images). I chose the clearest background image to use for the starry sky then chose the best light painted foreground and layered it over my background. I then went through all of my images and gathered all the shots that contained a meteor, cut them out and layered them on top of my background image to demonstrate the radiant point to which the Perseid Meteors originate.”
See more from our astrophotographer friends below:
Perseid Meteor and the Milky Way, in the Red Desert of Wyoming, August 11, 2013. Credit and copyright: Randy Halverson/dakotalapse.Early Perseids from the Washburn-Norlands Living History Center in Livermore, Maine, taken August 5, 2013. Credit and copyright: Steven Coates.
This video is from John Chumack, who captured 142 Perseids from my backyard in Dayton, Ohio! “My video cameras actually caught many more than I had seen visually,” John said via email, expressing a little disapointment in this year’s Persieds, “from past years experiences I was expecting more Perseids!”
A persistent Perseid on August 11, 2013. Shot with Canon T1i/500D with Samyang 8mm fisheye. F5.6 / 3200ISO / 30s. Credit and copyright: darethehair on Flickr.A very bright fireball from the Perseid meteor shower, along with the Otto Struve Telescope from the McDonald Observatory in Texas and the Milky Way. Credit and copyright: Sergio Garcia Rill/SGR Photography.
You can read more about this image by Sergio Garcia Rill and the ‘persistent’ neon fireball at his website.
A Perseid meteor and the constellation Cassiopeia seen over Winchester, UK. Credit and copyright: Paul Williamson.
Now more:
Can you spot a total of 6 meteors in this image? (two are very faint). This is a composite of 3 pictures stacked, each picture taken with a Canon 550D @18mm 30s Exposure at ISO 3200. Credit and copyright: Andrei Juravle.2013 Perseids Radiant Point: A composite shot of Perseid meteors emanating from the meteor shower radiant point. This composite features 9 total Perseid meteors. Credit and copyright: Scott MacNeill.A Perseid meteor and the Milky Way. Credit and copyright: TheMagster3 on Flickr.Perseid meteor shower (and equipment!) taken on August 11, 2013 near Monte Romano, Lazio, Italy, with a Nikon D5200. Credit and copyright: marcopics3000 on Flickr.Perseid Meteor Shower and Milky Way image shot in Hampstead, North Carolina on a Canon 7D @10mm 30s f/4 ISO 2500. Credit and copyright: K.C. Goshert.
New images added 8/13/13:
Perseid meteor captured by Emilia Howes, aged 7, at Lacock in Wiltshire, England.Perseid Meteors over Ancient Bristlecone Pine in the White Mountains of California. This is a composite shot of 73 meteors, aligned as they were captured according to where they were against the stars. Credit and copyright: Kenneth Brandon.Perseids over Joshua Tree. This is a composite image composed of 180 stills from a static timelapse sequence, aiming towards the North Star. Taken on August 9, 2013. Credit and copyright: Sean Parker/Sean Parker Photography.‘My first-ever photo of a meteor!’ said astrophotographer Dawn Sunrise on Flickr. Congrats!Perseid meteor photographed on August 11, 2013 at 0255 EDT through broken clouds, Weatherly, PA. 20 second exposure, ISO 1600 using a Samyang 14mm lens. Credit and copyright: Tom Wildoner.One Perseid meteor before the clouds rolled in over Blackrod, England, August 12, 2013. Credit and copyright: TheDaveWalker on Flickr.Perseid meteor on August 12, 2013. Credit and copyright: Stephen Rahn.Perseids Meteor 8/11/2013 El Dorado Lake, Kansas. Credit and copyright: Tom Wright.
More images added 8/15/13:
Meteor seen over Green Bay, Wisconsin on August 14, 2013 around 12:30 am central time. Photographer Michelle Madruga said, ‘I used my measly Canon T3i and my 18-55mm lens set at 18mm. During my 30 sec exposure, this huge asteroid shot across the sky! I was lucky it was in my camera’s view!’ Credit and copyright: Michelle Madruga.Perseid meteor seen over the Rocky Mountains of Colorado, taken with a Canon 7D 18-55mm. Credit and copyright: Micah Holtgraves.Perseid meteor. Credit and copyright: Val Camp.Perseid meteor on August 13, 2013 seen over Kootwijkerzand, at the ‘de Hoge Veluwe’, one of the last dark spots in the Netherlands. This picture was taken with an EOS 60d with a 11-16 2.8 tokina lens. Credit and copyright: Freek vd Driesschen.
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