The Sunflower Galaxy

NGC206 is an unusual object. It’s a cluster of stars, which in itself is not unusual at all… but it’s in ANOTHER GALAXY. The Andromeda Galaxy, to be precise. The fact that we can see it so clearly, two and a half million light-years away, boggles the mind. It’s that cluster of blue stars near…

Taken just prior to Halloween in 2018, the southeastern knot of the Eastern Veil Nebula takes on a ghostly appearance when imaged in the Hubble palette with narrowband filters.

This is the Tulip Nebula in Cygnus, but see that shell-like structure just above it, to the right a little? That’s the bow shock wave of Cygnus X-1, a stellar-mass black hole! It’s one of the most powerful X-ray sources in the sky – but don’t worry, our atmosphere protects you from it. 20 hours…

This is planetary nebula PK205+14.1, but its common name “The Medusa Nebula” rolls off the tongue a little better. About 1500 light-years away within the constellation Gemini, you’re seeing the gas blown off by a small star that ran out of fuel, and blew up into a red giant – later to end its life…

It’s globular cluster season, so here’s another one! M80 is found within the constellation Scorpius, and lies a distant 32,600 light-years away – making it one the small side from our vantage point. It contains several hundred thousand stars, and is one of the denser globular clusters in our galaxy. The faint galaxy in the…

Yeah, it’s been a couple of months since we’ve done a live star party online, or posted any new pictures. That’s just summertime in Central Florida for you – it’s been too cloudy to do any imaging or observing. The skies should start clearing up more in a couple of months, and we have every…