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Most viewed - Astronomical Images |
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Comet 2020/F3 NEOWISE935 viewsConditions for photographing Comet NEOWISE from my observatory near Anza, California were less than ideal. The comet was visible only in the northwest for a couple hours after sunset, at most, which put it squarely in the Los Angeles light dome. Another factor involved was the inexperience of the photographer - I hadn't done any night shooting with my DSLR before and I never got the camera focused properly, so the stars came out somewhat bloated and fuzzy. They also show some coma, I don't know why. But at least the comet itself came out reasonably well.
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End of Totality865 viewsI missed getting the diamond ring on this one, but you can see a hint of it at 7 o'clock.
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NGC 4725835 viewsA one-armed spiral galaxy in the constellation Coma Berenices, about 41 million light-years from Earth. This is a Seyfert galaxy, meaning that it has a very active nucleus; it is also a barred spiral and has a prominent ring structure. It is interacting with NGC 4747 in the upper left corner of the frame, resulting in severe distortion of both galaxies and producing the spectacular tidal tails seen with NGC 4747. The smaller spiral galaxy to the right of NGC 4725 is NGC 4712.
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Sharpless 2-171, The Teddy Bear Nebula in Cepheus823 viewsAn emission nebula, part of a larger nebula designated NGC 7822, about 2900 light years away.
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IC1396A - Elephant Trunk Nebula 822 viewsA narrowband (Hubble Palette) image of a dense cloud of gas and dust within a much larger region of ionized gas designated IC1396, illuminated and ionized by the massive bright star HD206267 at the upper right corner of the frame. I don't find that the shape of the nebula resembles an elephant's trunk, but rather, as Michelle Evans has suggested, a dragon named Verminthrax Pejorative from the movie Dragonslayer.
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Messier 104 - The Sombrero Galaxy809 views28 million light-years away in the constellation Virgo, the Sombrero is one of the most spectacular of all galaxies.
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Messier 24 - "Small" Sagittarius Star Cloud809 viewsMessier 24 is an enormous cloud of stars lying in the Sagittarius arm of our galaxy, at a distance of about 10,000 light years from Earth. It is about 600 light years wide and occupies an area 90 arc minutes in apparent diameter. Among other objects, M24 contains the open cluster NGC 6603, which is at the center of this image. M24 is called the Small Sagittarius Star Cloud because there is another, larger star cloud south of it in Sagittarius, consisting of stars not obscured by the interstellar dust which blocks our view of the center of the galaxy.
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Second Contact785 viewsWith an annular eclipse, Second Contact is the moment when the Moon's disk becomes fully enclosed by the Sun's.
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NGC 7822 - Star-forming region in Cepheus781 viewsIncludes the emission nebula Sharpless 171 and the star cluster Berkeley 59. Around 3000 light-years from Earth.
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M83 - The Southern Pinwheel Galaxy768 viewsA barred spiral galaxy about 15 million light-years away in Hydra, on the border with Centaurus. The nickname derives from its resemblance to the Northern Pinwheel Galaxy, M101.
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Totality minus 55 minutes763 viewsC2 - 55 min 40 sec
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NGC6302 - The Bug Nebula761 viewsA bipolar planetary nebula in the constellation Scorpius. Also known as the Butterfly Nebula, but a larger telescope than the 5" refractor used to capture this image is needed to show the pattern clearly; it shows up well in Hubble images. In this image, the nebula looks more like a bug squashed on a car windshield.
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