Deep Space Object – Page 2 – Semper Iuvenis Photography

M 82 – The Cigar Galaxy

A bright Starburst galaxy located in the constellation Ursa Major, about 12 million light-years away. It’s also known as the Cigar Galaxy because of its elliptical shape.

M 82 is generally photographed with M 81, Bode’s Galaxy. I pointed the 8″ RC telescope at it to get as much detail as I could on just this galaxy.

M82 is a spiral galaxy that’s undergoing a starburst, a massive burst of star formation in its core. It has a gravitatioonal interaction with its nearby galaxy, M81, which causes it to have an extremely high rate of star formation.

M82 is a prototype starburst galaxy and the second-largest member of the M81 group. It’s bright at infrared wavelength and has over 30 billion stars.

M82 can be found in the northern skies in the direction of Ursa Major, also known as the Great Bear.

Cosmic Bat in Orion

Hidden in the outskirts of the Orion constellation, close to the Witchhead Nebula (IC 2118), we can find an area rich in interstellar gas and dust around the reflection nebula NGC 1788. This bright deep sky object attracts our attention among all that faint dust and gas. It is flanked by the dark nebula known as Lynds 1616.

I began imaging NGC 1788 on January 1st and continued on the nights of Jan 4th, 7th, 10th and 11th. I acquired a touch over 200 5 minute exposures. I remember it was bloody cold! This was imaged with the Skywatcher Esprit 120ED telescope at 840mm focal length using a ZWO ASI2600MC camera.

NGC 1788 is about 2,000 light years away from Earth and is sometimes called the “Cosmic Bat” nebula. It is made up of blue reflection regions, lots of dust, and a glowing area of hydrogen gas. It is close to the celestial equator, so it is sometimes visible from both hemispheres at certain times of the year. The brightest star in the nebula is 10th magnitude and is in the northwest sector.

Although this ghostly cloud is rather isolated from Orion’s bright stars, their powerful winds and light have a strong impact on the nebula, forging its shape and making it a home to a multitude of newborn stars.

I’ve enjoyed imaging these reflection nebula showing something a little different in our night sky.

Cheers!

M 16 – Eagle Nebula

Eagle Nebula – “Pillars of Creation” –
(also known as the Star Queen Nebula and The Spire) is a young open cluster of stars in the constellation Serpens.

Both the “Eagle” and the “Star Queen” refer to visual impressions of the dark silhouette near the center of the nebula.

The nebula contains several active star-forming gas and dust regions, including the aforementioned Pillars of Creation. The Eagle Nebula lies in the Sagittarius Arm of our Milky Way.

This image results from 366 subframes (~19 hours of exposure) captured in May, June & July 2021 using a WO Z73 scope & ASI 071MC Pro camera riding the SW EQ6r Pro mount. Supporting cast includes WO 120mm guide scope, ASI 120mm-mini, QHY Polemaster, Pegasus PBA, Senso Sesto focuser & radian ultra quad filter.

Image acquisition using APT & PHD2 on a windows platform ran remotely from inside my home. Image processing Pixinsight.

C 9 – Cave Nebula

The Cave Nebula is 2,400 Light-years from earth in the constellation Cepheus.

Sh2-155 (also designated Caldwell 9) is a very faint diffuse nebula located 2,400 light-years away in the constellation Cepheus. It is widely known as the Cave Nebula.

The image consists of subs taken from the hills of Burke County, NC from Nov & Dec ’20 along with subs from Jan, May, June & July of ’21 – 220 subs totaling 19.5 hours of exposure.

Acquisition hardware: EQ6r Pro, WO Z73, ASI071MC Pro, Radian Quad Ultra, Polemaster, Senso Sesto 2, WO 50-200mm guidescope, ASI 120mm, and NUC.

Acquisition software: APT, PHD2, EQMOD, W10 pro.

Processed manually in Pixinsight.

Roughly 2,400 light-years away and lying in the plane of our Milky Way galaxy, the Cave Nebula is a diffuse emission nebula, within a larger nebula complex that includes a reflection nebula, and dark nebula. It is formed of gases that emit their own light. The bright arc that forms the mouth of the cave is an active birthplace for stars, known as an H II region, where hot clouds of atomic hydrogen have become ionized.

Having a magnitude of about 8 and a span of roughly 40 light-years, Caldwell 9 is a diffuse and low-contrast object, so it can still be difficult to find in the sky. Caldwell 9 is tantalizing to researchers because, according to radio and near-infrared studies of this nebula, the area is bursting with young, hot stars popping into existence.

The amazing wonders of nature.

IC 1805: The Heart Nebula

IC 1805 - Heart Nebula — The Heart Nebula

The Heart Nebula lies some 7500 light years away from Earth and is located in the Perseus Arm of the Galaxy in the constellation Cassiopeia. It was discovered by William Herschel on 3 November 1787. It is an emission nebula showing glowing ionized hydrogen gas and darker dust lanes.

The brightest part of the nebula (a knot at its western edge) is separately classified as NGC 896 and known as the Fish Head Nebula, because it was the first part of the nebula to be discovered.

The nebula’s intense red output and its morphology are driven by the radiation emanating from a small group of stars near the nebula’s center. This open cluster of stars at the Heart’s heart, known as Melotte 15, contains a few bright stars nearly 50 times the mass of our Sun, and many more dim stars that are only a fraction of our Sun’s mass.

This image is comprised of 40 images of 4 min exposures each for a total integration of 2hrs 40mins. Each image was shot at 100 gain & 20 offset in a ZWO ASI071MC Pro camera cooled to 20f. 20 darks, 20 flats, 20 bias frames as calibration frames.

This nebula is in a late rising constellation in our summer months. I was able to begin imaging at 2AM and photographed continuously until a few minutes past 5AM. Do you see the heart? How about the fishhead? There’s also a soul nebula located just outside of this images frame. I’ll image that in the future. The FOV of my Z73 is just a touch to narrow to get them both in the same shot.

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Cheers!