I Was Able To See And Take Pictures Of The Comet C2023/A3 (Tsuchinshan-ATLAS) ! This Comet Will Be Visible

II took another photo of M51 / the whirlpool galaxy, same camera and same processing of the data, but I used a different (bigger) telescope. Here, using a bigger telescope has two major effects, firstly the image is more ''zoomed in'' since the focal length is longer. Secondly, since the diameter is bigger the maximal (angular) resolution of the image can be increased. This increase in resolution is due to the way the waves of light are diffracted by the aperture of the optical instrument (in short bigger aperture = better resolution). This increase in resolution is one of the reasons professional telescopes have gigantic mirrors and/or use telescope arrays combined with interferometry to increase their maximal angular resolution.

Picture of IC59 and IC63. This is a pair of nebula located near the star γ Cassiopeia, the big star at the bottom, which is responsible for making the nebula glow. Both nebula are composed of ionise hydrogen responsible for the red colour (especially on IC63) and colder dust/gas responsible for the blue colour (most visible on IC59). γ Cassiopeia can make taking photos of those nebula difficult due to the halos it produces, I did my best to limit its impact during processing, but there is still a faint blue halo around it. IC63 is also known as the Ghost of Cassiopeia due to its shape, it was discovered in 1893 by the German astronomer Max Wolf.

Image taken using a CarbonStar 150/600 newtonian telescope with a 0.95 coma corrector, ZWO ASI294 monochrome camera. 12x300s image for each filter (LRGBHa), total imaging time 5h, stacking and processing done in PixInsight. Details of both objects: IC63

IC59

For those not in the US wanting to search for dark skies near you, this website is quite useful.

The black areas represent the remaining natural dark skies in the United States

This is M51, also known as the Whirlpool Galaxy it is a pair a galaxy currently interacting together. If you look at the two arms of the spiral, you will see that the one on the left is somewhat deformed (near the other galaxy) this is due to the gravitational interaction between the two galaxies. Those interaction are also the reason why the left galaxy (NGC 5195) is this irregular. Some of the models have proposed that both galaxies have passed through each other at some point in the past. In the future both galaxie will slowly fuse together, but this will take at least a few hundred million years. Multiple other interacting galaxies also exist, such as the butterfly galaxies or the antenna galaxies.

This photo was supposed to be a test of my new equatorial mount but the result was WAY BETTER than expected so here you go (the post-treatment of the photos is not the best ever but I had to work with a limited amount a data). I will probably post more photos this summer since I now have access to better skys and a better mount than in Munich (If the weather complies).

Perseus double cluster, had still some time left at the end of the night after the main sequence of photos and before dawn so I took the opportunity to capture about 25 minutes of photos of the double cluster. This is a pair of open clusters of stars (NGC 884 left and NGC 869 right), both are composed mostly of young blue giants and a few red giants in NGC 884. Both clusters have most likely formed from a single gas cloud and are only separated by a few hundred light years. This pair of cluster is relatively bright and can be viewed with the naked eye or a pair of binoculars in dark locations, in those cases, the clusters appear as nebulous region, with a couple of stars resolved with binoculars.

There might not be sound in space, but there is quite a lot to listen to in the radio frequencies (especially when it comes to the planets of the solar system).

(the full article : https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/nasas-juno-spacecraft-enters-jupiters-magnetic-field ) Some ''similar'' sounds are also present on earth with for example the reverberation if radio waves emitted by lightning.

I'm trying to find a clean, concise, factual video of pulsar pulses but the top results on youtube are all fake clickbait bullshit. Where are the videos from professor so-and-so with 10 subscribers of simple black and white graphs.

(this page has what I'm looking for but afaik none of these videos are on youtube)

This is a photo of the Andromeda galaxy I took nearly 5 years ago. The dark parts of the galaxy are gigantic clouds of dust and gas in which no stars and planets are born. This galaxy is one the closest one to our own, and yet it's 2.55 million light years from us, It's composed of about 1000 billion stars, in a few billion years it will collide with our own galaxy.

The two lighter blotches around Andromeda are two satellite Galaxys that orbit around Andromeda and are also composed of millions of stars.

Those numbers are so big they start to get inconceivable, and that's only a small fraction of what exists out-there. We are not much in the grand scheme of the universe, but when you look at the night sky and the wonders of the universe you can feel at least for a little while that you're part of it.

Picture of the bubble nebula and surrounding objects : Top left (the vague group of stars): M52 an open cluster

Center right: NGC 7538 an emission nebula (also known as the northern lagoon nebula)

Bottom center: NGC 7635/the bubble nebula and the surrounding hydrogen cloud

The ''bubble'' part of this nebula is created by the stellar wind (flow of gas, plasma and particle) emitted by the central star at nearly 650 million km/h hitting and compressing the surrounding interstellar gas. The central star (BD +602522) is currently estimated to be about 45 times heavier than our sun and about 4 million years old. Being so massive and thus very hot (it's a type O star) its lifespan is very limited for a star and it should go supernova in about 10 to 20 million years.

BD +602522 is slightly off center from the bubble, this is due to the interstellar gas being a bit more dense on one side and thus slowing the stellar wind more efficiently.

Single exposure to make the central star more visible.

Image taken using a CarbonStar 150/600 newtonian telescope with a 0.95 coma corrector, ZWO ASI294 monochrome camera. 12x300s image for each colour filter (LRGB) and 12x300s for the Ha filter, total imaging time 5h, stacking and processing done in PixInsight.

Starless version of the same image:

Older image where the bubble is more distinct from the background hydrogen clouds :

sometimes astronomy camera companies will post about their horrible attempts to fix hardware problems with software. normally these are unremarkable.

and then sometimes they contain a beautiful single sentence that will live in your brain forever