A lesser known sight in the nebula-rich constellation Orion, NGC 2174 can be found with binoculars near the head of the celestial hunter. About 6,400 light-years distant, the glowing cosmic cloud surrounds loose clusters of young stars. Covering an area larger than the full Moon on the sky, this stunning narrow band image adopts a …
The Rosette Nebula (also known as Caldwell 49) is a large, circular H II region located near one end of a giant molecular cloud in the Monoceros region of the Milky Way Galaxy. The open cluster NGC 2244 (Caldwell 50) is closely associated with the nebulosity, the stars of the cluster having been formed from …
Messier 81 (also known as NGC 3031 or Bode’s Galaxy) is a spiral galaxy about 12 million light-years away in the constellation Ursa Major. Due to its proximity to Earth, large size and active galactic nucleus (which harbors a 70 million M☉ supermassive black hole), Messier 81 has been studied extensively by professional astronomers. The …
NGC 7380 is an open cluster discovered by Caroline Herschel in 1787. William Herschel included his sister’s discovery in his catalog, and labelled it H VIII.77. It is also known as 142 in the 1959 Sharpless catalog (Sh2-142). Known as the Wizard Nebula, this object is a reasonably large nebula located in Cepheus. Skywatcher ED80/Robtics …
The Pelican Nebula (also known as IC5070 and IC5067) is an H II region associated with the North America Nebula in the constellation Cygnus. The nebula resembles a pelican in shape, hence the name. The Pelican Nebula is a large area of emission nebula in the constellation Cygnus (the Swan), close to Deneb, and divided …
The Elephant’s Trunk nebula is a concentration of interstellar gas and dust in the star cluster IC 1396 – an ionized gas region located in the constellation Cepheus about 2,400 light years away from Earth. The piece of the nebula shown here is the dark, dense globule IC 1396A; it is commonly called the Elephant’s …
Recently I have started with observing variable stars. For this I have been measuring v363 cas and its surroundings. In this area four/five nice variables were visible in my field of view. Here is an overview of the generated lightcurves together with the estimates from the AAVSO database….
After my first exoplanet last week I got a taste for more, and so I made another attempt to detect an exoplanet last night. Now there was a transit of Wasp-12b, a special exoplanet, discovered in 2008, described as follows on wikipedia: —————————————————————————————————- The planet is so close to WASP-12 that the star’s tidal forces …
Qatar-1b is a gas-giant planet, 1.1 times more massive than Jupiter and with a diameter 1.2 times that of Jupiter. It orbits an orange dwarf star (named Qatar-1 in honour of the discovery, catalogue number 3UC311-087990) which is located 170 parsecs (550 light-years) from Earth in the northern constellation of Draco. At this distance, the …
Shown here is a lightcurve measured of a binary star system transiting each other during a rotation period.