Wed. Nov. 15 - Tonight's Forecasts Are Inconsistent- We'll Wait A Few Hours To Decide If We'll Open.

The Hidden Galaxy, IC 342 // Ondřej Pešák

"The Imperfect Angel Nebula", NGC 2170 // zombi

Dusty regions like these are often the places where stars form. In fact, there are two notable stars—V633 (top left of center) and V376 Cassiopeiae (bottom left)—in this image from the Hubble Space Telescope.

These stars have yet to start fusing hydrogen in their cores, and continue to accumulate mass. As they do this, much of the material they ingest gets shot back out as energetic jets. For these young stars, these jets can contain as much mass as Earth has.

Credit: ESA/Hubble & NASA; Gilles Chapdelaine.

ALT TEXT: A protostar in the process of forming. Above the center, at 11 o’clock, is a bright, white star. To the bottom right of this star is a large cavity, surrounded by dark brown gas and dust. This surrounding dust fills the image with the exception of another small cavity toward the bottom left. At about 4 o’clock in this cavity, there is another bright, white star. Smaller white stars are spread throughout the image.

2023 October 4

IC 2118: The Witch Head Nebula Image Credit & Copyright: Abdullah Alharbi

Explanation: Does this nebula look like the head of a witch? The nebula is known popularly as the Witch Head Nebula because, it is said, the nebula’s shape resembles a Halloween-style caricature of a witch’s head. Exactly how, though, can be a topic of imaginative speculation. What is clear is that IC 2118 is about 50 light-years across and made of gas and dust that points to – because it has been partly eroded by – the nearby star Rigel. One of the brighter stars in the constellation Orion, Rigel lies below the bottom of the featured image. The blue color of the Witch Head Nebula and is caused not only by Rigel’s intense blue starlight but because the dust grains scatter blue light more efficiently than red. The same physical process causes Earth’s daytime sky to appear blue, although the scatterers in planet Earth’s atmosphere are molecules of nitrogen and oxygen.

∞ Source: apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap231004.html

Wed. Nov. 1: Cloudy tonight. The observatory will be closed.

Wed. 4/16: Check back for our weather decision after 4 pm! The forecasts disagree.

NASA Science

What is Dark Energy? Inside our accelerating, expanding Universe - NASA Science

Some 13.8 billion years ago, the universe began with a rapid expansion we call the big bang. After this initial expansion, which lasted a fr

Article of the Day!

"What is Dark Energy? Inside our accelerating, expanding Universe" by Chelsea Gohd

What is casting dark shadows across 36,000 light-years of space in this Hubble Space Telescope image?

The mysterious dark rays appearing to emanate from galaxy IC 5063 have intrigued astronomers, and there are a few different ideas about what is causing them. They could be like the shadows of clouds when light from the setting Sun pierces through them.

Astronomers have traced the rays back to the galaxy’s core, the location of an active supermassive black hole. One idea suggests that the shadows are being cast into space by an inner tube-shaped ring, or torus, of dusty material surrounding the black hole.

Credit: NASA, ESA, and W.P. Maksym (CfA).

ALT TEXT: Rust-colored view of space, with a bright, narrow purple region at the center, a galaxy. Background stars and galaxies are scattered sparsely—this is a dusty rather than starry scene. To the upper left of the bright central region are dark dust lanes. Opposite these to the lower right, one dark area extends from the central bright region and splits into two dark rays. Similar dark rays can be seen to the top left, behind the dust lanes. The edges of the entire image are dark, fading from the colored center.

Messier-20 is called the “Trifid Nebula” because of the three bright lobes in the lower purple-coloured area. This purple region is emitting light, while the upper blue area is just reflecting it.

It is a local star-forming region in our Milky Way galaxy (4,000 light years away). (at Bordeaux, France) https://www.instagram.com/p/B1bxBljC5H9/?igshid=1g0i6zddk37k