Daily Archives: August 22, 2014

Comet Jacques, Heart and Soul 

MG_0098jacques_Dierick
Image Credit & Copyright: Dominique Dierick

On July 13th, a good place to watch Comet Jacques was from Venus. Then, the recently discovered visitor (C/2014 E2) to the inner solar system passed within about 14.5 million kilometers of our sister planet. Still, the outbound comet will pass only 84 million kilometers from our fair planet on August 28 and is already a fine target for telescopes and binoculars. Two days ago, Jacques’ greenish coma and straight and narrow ion tail were captured in this telescopic snapshot, a single 2 minute long exposure with a modified digital camera. The comet is flanked by IC 1805 and IC 1848, also known as Cassiopeia’s Heart and Soul Nebulae. If you’re stuck on planet Earth this weekend you can hunt for Comet Jacques in evening skies, or spot a Venus, Jupiter, crescent Moon triangle before the dawn.

APOD NASA 22-Aug-14

Related posts:

  1. The Heart and Soul Nebulas
  2. Comet Jacques and the Heart
  3. IC1805 and IC1848 – The Heart and Soul Nebulae
  4. Cloud, Clusters and Comet Siding Spring 

Trifid Nebula

cec9189b03b09bd8020e689470b7c577.1824x0_q100_watermark_watermark_opacity-20_watermark_position-4_watermark_text-Copyright Stefan Westphal
The Trifid Nebula (catalogued as Messier 20 or M20 and as NGC 6514) is an H II region located in Sagittarius.
The Trifid Nebula was the subject of an investigation by astronomers using the Hubble Space Telescope in 1997, using filters that isolate emission from hydrogen atoms, ionized sulfur atoms, and doubly ionized oxygen atom. The images were combined into a false-color composite picture to suggest how the nebula might look to the eye.
The close-up images show a dense cloud of dust and gas, which is a stellar nursery full of embryonic stars. This cloud is about8 light-years away from the nebula’s central star. A stellar jet protrudes from the head of the cloud and is about 0.75 ly long. The jet’s source is a young stellar object deep within the cloud. Jets are the exhaust gasses of star formation. Radiation from the nebula’s central star makes the jet glow.

Imaging telescopes or lenses: GSO RC 8″ Carbon
Imaging cameras: Artemis Atik 383L+
Mounts: Fornax 51
Guiding telescopes or lenses: GSO RC 8″ Carbon
Guiding cameras: M-Gen Guiding Kamera
Focal reducers: Astro-Physics CCD tele compressor CCDT67 – 0.67x Reducer
Software: Fitswork4, Adobe Photoshop CS 6, Deep Sky Stacker 3.3.3 Beta 51 DSS DeepSkyStacker
Filters: Baader Planetarium 36mm Luminance, Baader Planetarium 36mm Red, Baader Planetarium 36mm Green, Baader Planetarium 36mm Blue
Accessories: Lacerta MGEN2, Teleskop-Service TS OAG 9mm
Dates: July 27, 2014, July 31, 2014
Locations: Namibia
Frames:
Baader Planetarium 36mm Blue: 7×360″ -20C bin 1×1
Baader Planetarium 36mm Green: 5×360″ -20C bin 1×1
Baader Planetarium 36mm Luminance: 16×360″ -20C bin 1×1
Baader Planetarium 36mm Red: 8×360″ -20C bin 1×1
Integration: 3.6 hours
Darks: ~12
Flats: ~48
Bias: ~150

Author: Stefan Westphal
AstroPhotography of the day by SPONLI 22 Aug 2014

Related posts:

  1. NGC 1333 in Perseus
  2. Helix Nebula in Aquarius
  3. NGC 7635: the Bubble nebula
  4. NGC 2359: Thor’s Helmet nebula