NGC 457, better known as the Owl Cluster, ET Cluster, and Dragonfly Cluster, was imaged by “Astrodoc” Ron Brecher of Guelph, Ontario. The bright stars are the eyes. The body and feet extend down to the right. Squint to see the upswept, curving chains of stars for the wings.This image covers a finger’s width of…
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This image of the Wild Duck Cluster, also known as Messier 11 and NGC 6705, was captured by the European southern Observatory. Note the blue and yellow stars, and the odd red one. The entire photograph covers about the size of the full moon in the sky, making M11 one of the easiest-to-see Summer Milky…
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This image of the Wild Duck Cluster, also known as Messier 11 and NGC 6705 in Scutum covers a patch of sky equal to the diameter of the full moon. The magnitude 6.3 open star cluster is visible with unaided eyes and through binoculars and telescopes, despite its 6200 light-year distance. It was taken using…
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The faint Witch’s Head Nebula aka NGC 1909 and IC 2118, is a ghostly reflection nebula near the bright star Rigel in Orion. It’s very large – stretching nearly three finger widths from her chin to her forehead! Image by Jeff Signorelli, NASA APOD for Oct 30, 2015 Happy Halloween week, Stargazers! Here are your…
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The Ghost of the Moon planetary nebula aka NGC 6781 in Aquila, photographed by the European Southern Observatory 3.6-m Telescope at the La Silla Observatory in the Atacama Desert, Chile. The image spans 4.5 arc-minutes of sky, or 15% of the full moon. The object is an expanding sphere of gas – the outer shells…
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