While we were all oohing and aahing over the Southern Lights on Saturday night I had my trusty Dwarfii with me. We'd been joined by a middle aged lady with a cellphone and enthusiasm but no knowledge, so between Aurora visits I cast about for an interesting galaxy to show her.
Rob suggested Centaurus A. This amazing celestial spectacle might be a spiral galaxy colliding with a larger elliptical galaxy, and there's a relativistic jet emitting from the supermassive black hole in the middle of it - heady stuff.
What is known for certain, from the party observing on Saturday night was that it looks a lot more like a hamburger than the galaxy nicknamed the Hamburger Galaxy ( NGC 3628 looks more like a hotdog to me) - specifically something from the Hungry Jack's / Burger King stable.
So I'm going to call it the Aussieburger Galaxy. It's possible that the supermassive black hole is the beetroot. We could definitely see the sesame seeds and the pickles.
This image is less than 200 frames, but with a bit of tweaking in Google photos it's acceptable viewing, and a bit of fun. I think the cloud coming in might have halted my stacking. I'd like to revisit this one again soon.
And the nice lady who'd wandered down to get a shot of the aurora with her old iphone? With the help of some advice and my monopod she caught it, and apparently is all fired up to get a Dwarfii of her own, and we have already set a stardate with her this week. Lovely!
The Aurora from Washington, from a star party in Duval.
It started a bit slow, but then we had this moment where it became incredibly bright & lit up the entire sky. At that moment everyone started cheering together, it was an amazing shared experience.
This turbulent and threatening structure is CG4, a cometary globule that seems to want to eat the galaxy ESO 257-19, but it is much further away. How these objects acquire their particular shape remains a topic of debate among astronomers. The characteristics that classify CG4 as a cometary globule are distinguished in this image captured by the..... #astronomy#space#astrophysics#astrophotography
Like many photographers around the world, I went on a last-ditch aurora chase on the weekend of 11 May. The huge CMEs left us with hopes of a second night of Southern Lights at low latitudes
Sadly, it was not to be. But I was determined to not come away from the adventure empty handed, and got this nice shot of the Milky Way.
Aurora Australis, from Shelly Beach at Port MacDonnell, South Australia. Cheeky five hour drive to catch this and so worth it - absolutely breathtaking to see those beams towering over me. Experience of a lifetime.
Sh2-114, also cataloged as LBN 347, is a very faint emission nebula visible in the Cygnus constellation, embedded in a much larger structure cataloged as LBN 346. This bundle of filaments seen here in a detailed wide-field image, collaboration between astronomers Tom Masterson and Kim Quick, are known as the Flying Dragon Nebula. It is a cloud that has..... #astronomy#space#astrophysics#astrophotography
Seeing the northern lights with my own eyes was an amazing experience this weekend! I wrote up a blog post about it and assembled a new video. Check it out!
NGC5371 (upper left), Hickson group 68 & PGC49480 (lower left) provide an appealing setting. Bright stars are often a nuisance, but the yellow & blue stars near Hickson68, and the yellow near NGC5371 add nicely to the ensemble. https://www.astrobin.com/xjgx3j#astrophotography 🔭📷
I did go back up to Christmas Hill tonight (which was quite crowded!) but sadly there were no more aurorae. It was a clear night though and I figured if there was no aurora then I could try out the astrophotography mode on my phone.
One thing I discovered is that the phone mount on my tripod is terrible. It's a springloaded thing that makes it very hard to actually take the photo (because the mount is in the way), see what's being photographed (because the mount covers half the screen), and also not damage or turn off the phone (because the mount clamps on the sides which is where the power button and volume are). But I managed some kind of uneasy, asymmetrically-mounted compromise that worked!
I'm not sure why some turned out blue and some turned out brown/grey though. I think I've identified some of the constellations in the frame at the time (though they're also harder to see in these pics because there's so many stars). But I think they turned out well! #astrophotography
#Aurora last night from 30 min east of #Seattle. Absolutely stunning for hours! Such an amazing shared experience we all got to have (irl and as a shining example of the global #mastodon community). 💚🩷💜♥️
The image taken by the Hubble Space Telescope shows the spiral galaxy UGC 9684, which is located about 240 million light years from the Milky Way and is located in the direction of the Bootes Constellation. This galaxy is an example of classic galactic features, including a bar in the center of the galaxy and a halo surrounding its disk. The reason for..... #astronomy#space#astrophysics#astrophotography
A small selection of shots from last night’s spectacular light show over #Groomsport, #CountyDown. #Aurora hunting here has always involved squinting at a faint green smudge on the northern horizon.
Not last night! 😎🤯
One of the more intense patches of colour from the Aurora Australis I observed a couple of hours ago or so.
A huge event to show so well so far north, and in the light pollution. Could make it out with the naked eye, and my Pixel picked it up just fine in astrophotography mode.
I got some time lapse with moving sheets, but they're a bit artifacty. Do you want to see them or just enjoy all the better shots that people have been getting?