Tarantula Nebula

 

Tarantula Nebula

Ever since Lacaille first observed it 270 years ago, The Tarantula has enthralled astronomers.

The Tarantula is a giant stellar nursery in the midst of transforming a massive reservoir of mostly hydrogen gas into hundreds of thousands of stars lying 161,000 light years from Earth in the Large Magellanic Cloud.

The large star cluster Radcliffe 136 (R136) lies at the heart nebula. Astronomers, at one time, thought that this intensely bright central region held a single supermassive star. They thought that such a supermassive star would tip the scales at approximately 1,000 solar masses. This created a quandary since laws of physics dictate that no such star could exist.

But with the advent of the Hubble Space Telescope, and new high-resolution imaging techniques, R136’s true nature came into focus. R136 is a compact star cluster comprising dozens of O-type main-sequence stars — the hottest, brightest, and most massive stars that are still converting hydrogen into helium in their cores — and equally hot and massive Wolf-Rayet stars, are characterized by ferocious stellar winds. No other spot in the known universe contains as many of these types of stars in such a relativity small volume of space. The most extreme of these young stars likely started their lives with 200 to 300 solar masses, but they have already slimmed down by 10 to 20 percent in the last million years or so because they shed weight at an amazing rate.” The 10 brightest of these stars provide nearly 30 percent of the energy ionizing all of Tarantula’s gas.

Astronomers are particularly interested in the Tarantula Nebule because it appears to be chemically very similar in  composition to the large star-forming regions observed when star formation was at its peak, and  the Universe was only a few billion years old. Star-forming regions in our galaxy, The Milky Way,  are not producing stars at nearly the same rate as the Tarantula Nebula, and they have a different chemical composition.

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 Exposures

Total integration time 5400s (1.5h):  Red 2 X 600s, Blue 3 X 600s, Green 2 X 600s, Luminance 2 X 600s .

The data I used to create this image, was acquired via Telescope Live’s network of robotic telescopes.

Telescope Specification - CHI-1

• Planewave CDK24 telescope with Corrected Dall Kirkham optical design.
• Model: Planewave CDK24
• Aperture: 610 mm (24 inches)
• Focal Length: 3962 mm
• F-ratio: 6.5
• Mount: Mathis MI-1000/1250 with absolute encoders

CCD Camera

• Model: FLI PL 9000
• Pixel Size: 12 Nanometers
• Pixel Array: 3056 x 3056
• Pixel Resolution: 0.62 arcsec/pixel
• Cooling: -25 degrees in Summer, -30 degrees in Winter
• Field of View: 31.8 x 31.8 arcmin
• Available Filters: Astrodon Luminance, Red, Green, Blue, Halpha, SII, OIII, Sloan r, Sloan g, Sloan i
• Position angle: 359.36 degrees

Observatory

 El Sauce Observatory

• Location: Río Hurtado, Coquimbo Region, Chile
• Coordinates: 30.472529° S, 70.762999° W (Google maps)
• Elevation: 1525 m
• Average seeing: 1'' - 1.5''
• MPC code: X0

 Post Processing

• Siril 1.2.0
• Photoshop 25.0.0
• Lightroom Classic
• Starnet++
• Astro Sharp
• Graf X pert

Ancient Photons

Ancient Photons Hello, fellow stargazers!

So, why did I name the group “Ancient Photons”? Well, it’s simple really. You see, in reality, astronomy is the study of light – Photons.

Those photons, quanta of light, were emitted by the object under study, traveled vast distances through space, and eventually collided with our detectors. Whether that detector is a CCD chip, a strip of film, a spectrograph, or an old-fashioned Mark I eyeball makes no difference. By the time we detect the photon, it is ancient.

Thanks to the speed of light, we can never know the current state of any astronomical object we observe. Think about that for a second. We can never know the current state of any object we see. Be it the light of the most distant object in the observable universe, or your fingertips. Why?

Well, it all has to do with the speed of light. In a star, a lightbulb, or the glowing embers of a campfire, energy is converted from one form to another (including into matter and back) and in the process emits photons. Photons are special. They always move at the speed of light - ~186,000 miles per second in a vacuum. Slightly, ever so slightly, slower in other mediums, such as air and glass.

In this case, we are only concerned about photons that exist in the spectrum of visible light, although photons run the gamut from ultra-high gamma rays to very low-energy radio waves.

So, getting back to the premise that we can never know the current state of any object we see; we have to ask ourselves, why is that?

It is because the speed of light is finite – it takes a given amount of time to travel from where it started its journey until it reaches its destination.

In the case of photons emitted by the sun; once they escape from the sun’s surface and start their journey through space, some will arrive at our detectors (eyes, camera, whatever) in about 8 minutes and 20 seconds. So, by the time the newly emitted solar photon enters our detector, we see it as it was 8 minutes and 20 seconds ago, not as it is now.

Likewise, if a photon strikes your fingertip and is reflected into your eyes, are you seeing your fingertip as it is now? The answer is no. You are seeing it, as it was about 3 nanoseconds ago – or about 3 billionths of a second ago. An exceedingly small amount of time – granted – but still, you are not seeing your fingertip as it currently is.

Let’s move out into space a bit. A photon is emitted from Proxima Centauri and heads in the general direction of Earth. In a little over four and a quarter years that photon will fall upon our detector. Is Proxima still there? We assume it is, but we can never be sure. If by some cosmic disaster, Proxima were to suddenly, right this instant, explode we would be blissfully ignorant of the event for another four and a quarter years.

And that is only the light in our neighborhood of the galaxy. For example, light from the Andromeda Galaxy takes two and a half million years to reach our detectors here on Earth. At the time the photon was emitted from the Andromeda Galaxy Homo habilis -- a species of early humans were emerging. They are commonly known as the first species to use carved stone tools.

And so, the further out into space we look, the further back in time we look. Astronomy is a study, where we depend on photons reaching our detectors here on earth, and for the most part, those photons are ancient.

Hence the name of my new group is “Ancient Photons Observatory”. Stop by and join us as we marvel at our universe.

Ancient Photons Observatory

Cygnus Loop

The Cygnus Loop 

The Cygnus Loop is a large supernova remnant in the constellation Cygnus, an emission nebula measuring nearly 3° across. Some arcs of the loop, known collectively as the Veil Nebula or Cirrus Nebula, emit in the visible electromagnetic range. Radio, infrared, and X-ray images reveal the complete loop. 

The nebula was discovered on 5 September 1784 by William Herschel. He described the western end of the nebula as "Extended; passes through 52 Cygni... near 2 degrees in length", and described the eastern end as "Branching nebulosity... The following part divides into several streams uniting again towards the south. 

A more recent investigation of the Cygnus Loop's distance using Gaia parallax measurements of several stars seen toward the Cygnus Loop has led to a more accurate distance estimate.  One of these stars, a 9.6 magnitude B8 star (BD+31 4224) located near the remnant's northwestern rim shows evidence of interactions of its stellar wind with the Cygnus Loop's shock wave, thereby indicating it is located actually inside the remnant. 

 Total integration time 11 hours.

Ha 22 X 600s OIII 22 X 600s SII 22 X 600s.

Telescope Specification (remotely operated robotic telescope)

• Model: Takahashi FSQ-106EDX4
• Aperture: 106 mm
• Focal Length: 382 mm
• F-ratio: 3.6 (with 0.73x focal reducer)
• Mount: Paramount MX+

CCD Camera Specification

• Model: FLI PL16083 (spec sheet)
• Pixel Size: 9 μm
• Pixel Array: 4096 x 4096
• Pixel Resolution: 4.74 arcsec/pixel
• Field of View: 324 x 324 arcmin
• Filters: Astrodon Ha, SII, OIII

Ancient Photons Observatory

Ghost Nebula

 

Ghost Nebula

In the North Circumpolar sky, the dust and gas of a nebula, illuminated by several nearby stars, form eerie-looking figures that resemble ghosts as depicted in popular culture. These clouds contain several young stars whose light makes the nebula glow in brownish tones.

The Ghost Nebula is a reflection nebula located approximately 1,470 lightyears away and spanning 2 lightyears in length in the constellation Cepheus. The nebula is part of a much larger nebulous region in Cepheus. It lies at the edge of the Cepheus Flare molecular cloud. The Cepheus Flare is a large star-forming region that also encompasses the nearby Iris Nebula. The molecular cloud complex spans an area seven times the size of the full Moon.

The Ghost Nebula is known as a Bok globule, a cloud of cold, dense material with denser knots that can collapse and form new stars. Bok globules typically produce binary and multiple star systems.

Catalogued as Bok globule CB230. It contains a star that is still in the process of forming. The star’s presence is indicated by cones swirling in opposite directions. The jets of material are carved and sculpted by the wind, ultraviolet radiation, and disk of material swirling around the young star. The class G star embedded within the dust cloud is believed to be a binary star system. It is catalogued as BD+67 1300.

The Ghost Nebula is one of the several well-known eerie-looking nebulae in the sky. It should not be confused with the Little Ghost Nebula (NGC 6369), a planetary nebula in Ophiuchus, the Ghost of Cassiopeia (IC 63), an emission nebula illuminated by the gigantic star Gamma Cassiopeiae in the constellation Cassiopeia, and the Ghost Head Nebula (NGC 2080) a star-forming region within the larger Tarantula Nebula in the Large Magellanic Cloud in Dorado.

The Ghost Nebula is catalogued as VdB 141 in Dutch-Canadian astronomer Sidney van den Bergh’s Catalog of Reflection Nebulae (1966) and as Sh2-136 in the Sharpless catalogue of H II regions, published by the American astronomer Stewart Sharpless in 1959.

The Ghost Nebula lies in the far northern sky near the brighter Iris Nebula and the variable star Alfirk (Beta Cephei), the third brightest point of light in the constellation Cepheus. Two other nebulae appear in the same area, the dark nebula LDN 1177, and the bright nebula LBN 495.

The constellation figure of Cepheus is a stick house pattern appearing directly above the W of Cassiopeia. The house asterism is formed by five stars easily visible to the unaided eye. Alderamin, the brightest star in Cepheus, is found by extending a line from Schedar through Caph, the rightmost stars of the W. Alfirk is part of the house asterism. It is the brightest star between Alderamin and Polaris in Ursa Minor.

The brighter Iris Nebula lies along the imaginary line extended from Errai, the star at the top of the stick house, through Alfirk, and the Ghost Nebula is located a bit closer to the line connecting Alfirk and Alderamin.

For most observers in the northern hemisphere, the Ghost Nebula is always high above the horizon because it is not too far from the north celestial pole. It never rises for observers south of the latitude 22° S.

The best time of the year to observe the nebula is during the month of November, when Cepheus rises high above the horizon in the evening sky.

Ghost Nebula – LRGB 

Data was acquired via a Remote Telescope located in Oria, Spain. Total integration time: 10 Hours 40 minutes (10m X 16 for each LRGB)

 Instrument: 27.5 inches Ritchey–Chrétien reflector telescope

• Model: Officina Stellare 700 RC
• Aperture: 700 mm
• Focal Length: 5600 mm
• F-ratio: 8.0
• Mount: Officina Stellare equatorial fork mount with absolute encoders and direct drives

 Imager: FLI PL16803

• Model: QHY 600M Pro
• Pixel Size: 3.76s μm
• Pixel Array: 9576 x 6382 pixels
• Native Pixel Resolution: 0.14 arcsec/pixel
• Cooling: -10 degrees in summer, -15 degrees in winter
• Field of View: 22 x 14.6 arcmin
• Filters: Astrodon Luminance, Red, Green, Blue, H-alpha, SII, OIII, Sloan r, Sloan g, Sloan i

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M1 - The Crab Nebula

M1 - The Crab Nebula

In 1054, Chinese astronomers took notice of a “guest star” that was, for nearly a month, visible in the daytime sky. The “guest star” they observed was actually a supernova explosion, which gave rise to the Crab Nebula, a six-light-year-wide remnant of the violent event.

Messier 1 is the only supernova remnant listed in Messier’s catalogue and the most famous object of its kind in the night sky. The nebula has a total luminosity 75,000 times that of the Sun and lies at a distance of 6,500 light years from Earth.

A rapidly spinning neutron star (the ultra-dense core of the exploded star) is embedded in the center of the Crab Nebula. Electrons whirling at nearly the speed of light around the star’s magnetic field lines produce the eerie blue light in the interior of the nebula. The neutron star, like a lighthouse, ejects twin beams of radiation that make it appear to pulse 30 times per second as it rotates.

The explosion of the progenitor star produced a large shell of filaments that has continued to expand ever since and will eventually disperse and disappear into the surrounding space.

The filaments of the Crab Nebula are what is left of the progenitor star’s atmosphere and they mainly consist of ionized hydrogen and helium, along with other elements including oxygen, carbon, iron, nitrogen, sulfur and neon. The temperatures of the filaments are typically in the range from 11,000 to 18,000 K.

The Crab Nebula was discovered by the English astronomer John Bevis in 1731. Bevis added the object to his sky atlas Uranographia Britannica, which was completed in 1750 but never published.

Charles Messier discovered the nebula independently on August 28, 1758 while looking for a bright comet and entered it as the first object in his catalogue on September 12.

His entry read, “Nebula above the southern horn of Taurus, it doesn’t contain any star; it is a whitish light, elongated in the shape of a flame of a candle, discovered while observing the comet of 1758.”

Messier at first believed that the Crab Nebula was Halley’s Comet, which was predicted to return that year, but then noticed that the object was not moving.

The discovery gave him the idea to compile a catalogue of objects that observers could easily confuse with comets because of their cloudy appearance.

It was the French astronomer and mathematician Alexis Clairaut who had predicted the return of Halley’s Comet in late 1758, saying it would likely appear in the constellation of Taurus, which was why Messier was searching for it in this area of the sky.

In the first publication of his catalogue, Messier credited himself for the discovery. John Bevis was eventually acknowledged years later, after he had sent a letter to Messier in June 1771.

M1 was named the Crab Nebula after William Parsons, the 3rd Earl of Ross made a drawing of the object in 1844. Messier 1 lies near the southern horn of the celestial Bull. It is located 1 degree northwest of the bright star Zeta Tauri. The star can easily be found by first locating Aldebaran, the brightest star in Taurus, and then following the line of the V-shape that Aldebaran is part of, to Zeta Tauri. Aldebaran can be located by following the line formed by the three stars of Orion’s Belt. It is the first bright star that appears on that imaginary line.

Zeta Tauri forms a square with three much fainter stars. The Crab Nebula is located in the vicinity of the square and it appears as a faint patch of light in binoculars. The Crab Pulsar is 16th magnitude and can only be seen in larger telescopes (20 inches or so) in very good viewing conditions, with clear skies and no light pollution.

The Crab Nebula’s filaments and structure may become apparent in 16-inch
telescopes under good conditions, while smaller telescopes, starting with 4-inch aperture, only reveal some detail in the shape of the remnant. In smaller instruments, M1 looks like a comet without a tail.

The best time to observe Messier 1 in the northern hemisphere is in late autumn and early winter, during the months of November, December, and January. Crab Pulsar is about 28 to 30 kilometers across and, as a result of its high spin rate, it emits pulses of optical, X-ray and radio radiation.

The Crab Nebula Pulsar was one of the first pulsars to be discovered and it provided evidence for the theory that pulsars were formed by supernova events.

The progenitor star of was identified in 1942 by the German-American astronomer Rudolf Minkowski, who discovered that it had a very unusual optical spectrum.

In 1967, the region around the star was identified as one of the brightest gamma-ray sources in the night sky.

The mass of the neutron star is believed to be in the range from 1.4 to 2 solar masses.

The existence of the Crab Pulsar was first predicted by the Italian astrophysicist Franco Pacini in the 1960s to explain the nebula’s brightness

Welcome

When we observe the night sky, whether it be with our naked eyes or with sophisticated optical systems or even telescopes high above the obscuring atmosphere of our planet we are capturing and observing Ancient Photons…

This blog was created to allow for the exchange of information related to astronomy and the art of capturing Ancient Photons.

I hope that you will find this group to be helpful, and a resource for the exchange of all things astronomical.

Welcome!  The universe is yours to discover, so keep looking up…