I had a fun night of stargazing last Thursday night, and I wanted to share some of the pictures I took with you. I achieved one of my astronomical bucket list items. And my telescope surprised me by its ability to see something I didn’t think it would be able to do. I think the pictures look best on a computer screen that is larger than your phone screen. When you open the pictures, zoom in and out to see more features.
Nebulae
My telescope is designed to view deep space objects that are very faint and very far away so lets start with some of them; the Eagle and Omega nebulas.
Have you ever seen the Hubble pictures of the Pillars of Creation? The Pillars are in the Eagle Nebula. You can see them near the center of my picture of the nebula. They are dark but they are there. Again, zoom in and out to reveal different features.
The Eagle Nebula (catalogued as Messier 16 or M16, and as NGC 6611, and 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, an area made famous as the "Pillars of Creation" imaged by the Hubble Space Telescope. 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 the Milky Way.
The Omega Nebula, also known as the Swan Nebula, Checkmark Nebula, Lobster Nebula, and the Horseshoe Nebula is in the constellation Sagittarius. It is by some of the richest star fields of the Milky Way, figuring in the northern two-thirds of Sagittarius. The Omega Nebula is between 5,000 and 6,000 light-years from Earth and it spans some 15 light-years in diameter. It is considered one of the brightest and most massive star-forming regions of our galaxy.
Galaxies
Here are two galaxies; Andromeda and the Cigar galaxy.
You can clearly see the core of the Andromeda Galaxy. The “haze” you see on the picture around the core is the rest of the galaxy. The galaxy is huge and is the closest one to us.
The Andromeda Galaxy is a barred spiral galaxy approximately 2.5 million light-years from Earth and the nearest large galaxy to the Milky Way. The galaxy's name stems from the area of Earth's sky in which it appears, the constellation of Andromeda, which itself is named after the Ethiopian (or Phoenician) princess who was the wife of Perseus in Greek mythology.
The number of stars contained in the Andromeda Galaxy is estimated at one trillion or roughly twice the number estimated for the Milky Way. The Milky Way and Andromeda galaxies are expected to collide in around 4-5 billion years, merging to form a giant elliptical galaxy.
The Cigar Galaxy is named because of its shape. Oddly, in this picture it appears to have two cores. I don’t know why the picture looks like this... [Update] This is because the galaxy contains multiple areas of very high star formation.
The Cigar Galaxy is a starburst galaxy approximately 12 million light-years away in the constellation Ursa Major. It is about five times more luminous than the Milky Way and has a center one hundred times more luminous.
Planets
The main reason I took my telescope to Marymoor Park last Thursday was to see Saturn and Jupiter. Saturn will reach opposition on Sunday night. This is when it is at its brightest. Jupiter reaches opposition in a couple of weeks. Our forecast is for clouds Sunday night and Thursday night was clear. That’s why I went out Thursday night. I got to see both planets near their brightest.
Both planets will be visible in the southeastern sky for at least the next month. Saturn rises first in the SSE and continues to rise and move farther south for several hours. Jupiter rises in the SSE about an hour after Saturn. They move across the sky together with Jupiter on the left and Saturn on the right. They never get too high in the sky. They are two of the brightest objects in the sky. Jupiter is much brighter than Saturn.
As I said in an earlier email, my telescope is designed to see dim, distant objects. The planets are considered to be close and bright. This means I really had to work to get pictures of them and they are not as dramatic as the pictures I sent earlier. Be that as it may, I am proud of what I was able to achieve.
One of my astronomy goals was to see Saturn with my own telescope. I am not embarrassed to tell you all that I did my happy dance when I got this picture of Saturn!
You can see the planet’s colors and the separation between the planet and the rings. Again, zoom in and out to see what you can notice.
This picture of Jupiter shows the planet’s color and if you zoom in you can see some of its bands.
I took this second picture of Jupiter in a different way. The planet’s color is washed out, but I think I was able to get some of Jupiter’s moons in this shot. I am not sure. The dots near the planet might just be stars in the background that happen to appear close to the planet. The moons were supposed to be visible Thu night, so I want to believe the dots are moons…
[Update] I have been able to confirm that what I thought were moons really are moons! They are Jupiter’s four largest moons; Io, Europa, Ganymede, and Calisto. They are the four moons discovered by Galileo. I didn’t think my telescope would be able to see the moons so I was very happy to find out that it could.
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