Abell 2151 is also known as the Hercules Galaxy Cluster because of its location in Hercules. This cluster of galaxies is fairly distant at an average distance of 500 million light years. It’s staggering to think that we can see detail in galaxies so distant with amateur equipment! There are over 200 galaxies in the…
Category: images
astro images
Messier 8
Messier 8, the Lagoon Nebula, is one of the showpiece nebulae of the summer sky. It’s in Sagittarius so it is low in the south for those of us at mid-northern latitudes. But, it is worth pointing the telescope that low! I’ve read that the Lagoon is actually bright and large enough to be seen…
Messier 13
Messier 13 is one of the jewels of the northern sky. It’s a globular cluster in Hercules and if you are an amateur astronomer who has access to that part of the sky, it’s one of the first deep sky objects you saw through a telescope if that happened in the late spring through summer….
Sh2-112
As the northern hemisphere moves into late spring, the Milky Way comes into view before midnight. And that means all those wonderful nebulae are now ready for their closeups! This one is Sharpless 112 (Sh2-112), an emission nebula in Cygnus. Specifically it’s the bright, circular region near the center. But, it’s clear that this is…
Messier 10
There are a lot of globular clusters out there and this one looks a lot like the typical globular. But, they make good “filler” targets because they don’t need much total time and they are still interesting. In this case, I was spending most of the night on Sharpless 112 but it didn’t get high…
Abell 1367
This is Abell 1367, another galaxy cluster. This is also informally known as the Leo Cluster since it’s in the constellation Leo. This cluster averages about 321 million light years away and along with the nearby Coma Cluster, is part of the Coma Supercluster (along with other clusters). This cluster is smaller than the Coma…
SN2023ixf in Messier 101
On May 20th, a supernova was detected in M100 and on the night of the 21st it was clear in Virginia though wildfire smoke had a major negative effect on transparency. I didn’t think it would be a good night for trying to do detailed, faint imaging but when someone suggested the supernova I thought…
Coma Cluster
The Coma Cluster is a very large cluster of galaxies in Coma Bereneces. The center of the cluster contains two supergiant eliptical galaxies, NGC 4874 and NGC 4889 but the entire cluster consists of over 1,000 galaxies. The average distance of the galaxies in the cluster is 321 million light years though being a huge…
Messier 5
No, this isn’t a repeat of M92. We’ve shifted 87 down the Messier catalog to another globular, This time we’re in the constellation of Serpens, near the celestial equator so much farther south than M92. This cluster is about 24,500 light years away ind is about ⅔ the diameter of the full moon. It is…
Messier 92
This is the globular cluster in Hercules that isn’t M13. Actually to be fair, there are others but this is the only other globular in the Messier catalog that is in Hercules. This one gets a lot less attention from amateurs than its more famous cousin but it is still worth a peek. The cluster…
Messier 99
Messier 99 is a grand design spiral galaxy in Coma Berenices. Unlike our Milky Way, it does not have a bar structure across the center. It is about 45 million light years away and is part of the large Virgo Cluster of galaxies Its apparent size is fairly small, only around 5 arc minutes in…
Linda's Astronomy Adventures 