CypherLou Space

[world-beauty]

January Aurora Over Norway

Credits: Bj�rn J�rgensen

[the-wolf-and-moon]

M57, Ring Nebula

[apod]

2025 February 10

Auroral Hummingbird over Norway Image Credit & Copyright: Mickael Coulon

Explanation: Is this the largest hummingbird ever? Although it may look like a popular fluttering nectarivore, what is pictured is actually a beautifully detailed and colorful aurora, complete with rays reminiscent of feathers. This aurora was so bright that it was visible to the unaided eye during blue hour – just after sunset when the sky appears a darkening blue. However, the aurora only looked like a hummingbird through a sensitive camera able to pick up faint glows. As reds typically occurring higher in the Earth’s atmosphere than the greens, the real 3D shape of this aurora would likely appear unfamiliar. Auroras are created when an explosion on the Sun causes high energy particles to flow into the Earth’s atmosphere and excite atoms and molecules of nitrogen and oxygen. The featured image was captured about two weeks ago above Lyngseidt, Norway.

∞ Source: apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap250210.html

[the-wolf-and-moon]

M51, Eye of the Whirlpool

[cypherlou66]

space spiral

[gulistan-blog]

㋡🥀

[cypherlou66]

Rainbow moon!

[the-wolf-and-moon]

NGC 7293, Helix Nebula

[the-wolf-and-moon]

Totality

[cypherlou66]

total eclipse april 2024

[niftyandinterestingstuff]

Helix Nebula NGC 7293 Known in popular culture as "God's Eye" and sometimes the "Eye of Sauron"

[apod]

2023 August 11

Messier 51 in 255 Hours Image Credit & Copyright: The Deep Sky Collective - Carl Björk, Thomas Bähnck, Sebastian Donoso, Jake Gentillon, Antoine and Dalia Grelin, Stephen Guberski, Richard Hall, Tino Heuberger, Jason Jacks, Paul Kent, Brian Meyers, William Ostling, Nicolas Puig, Tim Schaeffer, Felix Schöfbänker, Mikhail Vasilev

Explanation: An intriguing pair of interacting galaxies, M51 is the 51st entry in Charles Messier’s famous catalog. Perhaps the original spiral nebula, the large galaxy with whirlpool-like spiral structure seen nearly face-on is also cataloged as NGC 5194. Its spiral arms and dust lanes sweep in front of a companion galaxy (right), NGC 5195. Some 31 million light-years distant, within the boundaries of the well-trained constellation Canes Venatici, M51 looks faint and fuzzy to the eye in direct telescopic views. But this remarkably deep image shows off stunning details of the galaxy pair’s striking colors and extensive tidal debris. A collaboration of astro-imagers using telescopes on planet Earth combined over 10 days of exposure time to create this definitive galaxy portrait of M51. The image includes 118 hours of narrowband data that also reveals a vast glowing cloud of reddish ionized hydrogen gas discovered in the M51 system.

∞ Source: apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap230811.html

[apod]

2023 May 18

WR 134 Ring Nebula Image Credit & Copyright: Craig Stocks

Explanation: Made with narrowband filters, this cosmic snapshot covers a field of view about the size of the full Moon within the boundaries of the constellation Cygnus. It highlights the bright edge of a ring-like nebula traced by the glow of ionized sulfur, hydrogen, and oxygen gas. Embedded in the region’s interstellar clouds of gas and dust, the complex, glowing arcs are sections of bubbles or shells of material swept up by the wind from Wolf-Rayet star WR 134, brightest star near the center of the frame. Distance estimates put WR 134 about 6,000 light-years away, making the frame over 50 light-years across. Shedding their outer envelopes in powerful stellar winds, massive Wolf-Rayet stars have burned through their nuclear fuel at a prodigious rate and end this final phase of massive star evolution in a spectacular supernova explosion. The stellar winds and final supernovae enrich the interstellar material with heavy elements to be incorporated in future generations of stars.

∞ Source: apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap230518.html

[apod]

2023 May 15

M16: Eagle Nebula Deep Field Image Credit & Copyright: Gianni Lacroce

Explanation: From afar, the whole thing looks like an eagle. A closer look at the Eagle Nebula, however, shows the bright region is actually a window into the center of a larger dark shell of dust. Through this window, a brightly-lit workshop appears where a whole open cluster of stars is being formed. In this cavity, tall pillars and round globules of dark dust and cold molecular gas remain where stars are still forming. Already visible are several young bright blue stars whose light and winds are burning away and pushing back the remaining filaments and walls of gas and dust. The Eagle emission nebula, tagged M16, lies about 6500 light years away, spans about 20 light-years, and is visible with binoculars toward the constellation of the Serpent (Serpens). This picture involved long and deep exposures and combined three specific emitted colors emitted by sulfur (colored as yellow), hydrogen (red), and oxygen (blue).

∞ Source: apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap230515.html

[apod]

2023 May 1

Carina Nebula North Image Credit & Copyright: Carlos Taylor

Explanation: The Great Carina Nebula is home to strange stars and iconic nebulas. Named for its home constellation, the huge star-forming region is larger and brighter than the Great Orion Nebula but less well known because it is so far south – and because so much of humanity lives so far north. The featured image shows in great detail the northernmost part of the Carina Nebula. On the bottom left is the Gabriela Mistral Nebula consisting of an emission nebula of glowing gas (IC 2599) surrounding the small open cluster of stars (NGC 3324). Above the image center is the larger star cluster NGC 3293, while to its right is the emission nebula Loden 153. The most famous occupant of the Carina Nebula, however, is not shown. Off the image to the lower right is the bright, erratic, and doomed star known as Eta Carinae – a star once one of the brightest stars in the sky and now predicted to explode in a supernova sometime in the next few million years.

∞ Source: apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap230501.html

[spacewonder19]

LDN 1175, 1184 in Cepheus © Yizhou Zhang

[the-wolf-and-moon]

NGC 2841, Stardust Galaxy

[the-wolf-and-moon]

Comet Jacques and the Heart & Soul Nebulae

[the-wolf-and-moon]

NGC 2244, Heart of the Rose

[the-wolf-and-moon]

NGC 6188, Fighting Dragons of Ara