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Shortly after the turn of this century, a new, highly photogenic class of deep-sky objects began to draw the attention of astrophotographers. Amateurs equipped with fast astrographs and sensitive CCD [...]

Fellow amateur astronomers who tell you the summer sky is impossible to enjoy from your backyard are wrong. It is more difficult to get good looks at summertime deep-sky objects [...]

In recent years, DSLR and one-shot color (OSC) CCD cameras have surged in popularity with astrophotographers. The sensitivity and noise levels in these camera designs have improved to the point [...]

A few years ago I was thrilled when my step-daughter Kara unexpectedly arrived with her mom to join me at the Oregon Star Party for a few days. Upon seeing [...]

The first article in this series, in the July 2013 issue, examined the central section of our galaxy, in Sagittarius and Scorpius. The second, in October 2013, traced the glowing [...]

TAKING DEEP-SKY astrophotos from urban locations can be a challenging endeavor. Ever-increasing levels of light pollution limit your choice of targets; galaxies are virtually erased from view, and star-forming nebulae [...]

Blue snowball by Volker Wendel & Bernd Flach-Wilken The small but bright planetary nebula NGC 7662 (Caldwell 22) is located roughly 14° east of the Andromeda Galaxy. William Herschel discovered [...]

Lo, how th' obsequious Wind, and swelling Air The Theban Swan do's upwards bear Into the Walks of Clouds, where he do's play, And with extended Wings opens his liquid [...]

I stand at night and gaze up at the sky, A huge, inverted howl above my head; Upon its blue-black concave surface spread, Unnumbered twinkling lights intrigue my eye ... [...]

On a dark country night a few summers ago, I issued myself a somewhat arbitrary challenge: select and observe a variety of planetary nebulae inside the 'diamond' of Aquila outlined [...]

The dome of heaven is thy house Bird of the mighty wing, The silver stars are as thy boughs Around thee circling. Thy perch is on the eaves of heaven [...]

'The universe is empty, for the most part, but here and there, separated by immense intervals, we find other stellar systems, comparable with our own. ... These huge stellar systems [...]

Last month we navigated the northern reaches of Puppis, part of the mythical ship Argo crewed by Jason and the Argonauts on their heroic quest for the Golden Fleece. We'll [...]

Stern-foremost; no path of onward speeding ship her path. Sternwards she glides, like to a ship whose helm Her crew have turned to landward, Coming to anchor; all the oars [...]

The most detailed images ever taken of the Crab Nebula have given astronomers plenty of food for thought. ASTRONOMERS have long known that massive stars aren't content to pass away [...]

So Argo, rising from the southern main, Lights with new stars the blue ethereal plain; With favouring beams the mariner protects, And the bold course, which first it steer'd, directs. [...]

Orion's beams! Orion's beams! His star gemmed belt, and shining blade; His isles of light, his silvery streams, And gloomy gulfs of mystic shade. --John Theodore Barker, The Heavens, 1831 [...]

The great Orion Nebula, the most famous object of its kind, is beginning to yield its secrets as a center of star formation BRIGHTEST, CLOSEST, most spectacular. These are terms [...]

In last month's column I toured some of the deep-sky delights in the den of Vulpecula, the Little Fox. Now I'd like to continue that expedition starting with M27, commonly [...]

I WAS INTRODUCED to the Galactic Dark Horse in the 1980s at the Texas Star Party. A remarkable complex of dark nebulae with a striking resemblance to a prancing ebon [...]

THIS SEASON'S ICY MILKY WAY IS A deep-sky observer's paradise. Splashy open clusters, huge emission nebulae, and numerous planetary nebulae await the telescope. Many of the best-known planetary nebulae are [...]

IT HAS BEEN ALMOST TWO DECADES since nebula filters became an indispensable item in the eyepiece case of every serious observer. The so-called narrowband filters in particular can greatly improve [...]

For many northerners, Orion is a cold-weather constellation. The mighty Hunter doesn't climb high into a dark sky until October, and only then in the chilly hours before sunrise. By [...]

A giant stellar incubator 7,000 light-years away hatches its stars prematurely. Spectacular fields of nebulosity abound in the night sky to the delight of amateur astronomers everywhere. But the quest [...]

October 1942 Crab Nebula 'The rate of expansion of the Crab nebula is so great that, within an astronomically brief interval, perhaps by 3000 A.D., the material of which it [...]

Mystery in Monoceros 'Located just %' southwest of 4th-magnitude Delta Monocerotis, the planetary nebula NGC 2346 is an easy target for amateur telescopes. The object has long been of interest [...]

The odd behavior of a star in the heart of the Stingray Nebula (Henize 3-1357) provides tantalizing evidence that we might be seeing an abrupt acceleration of nuclear burning near [...]

I WAS THRILLED when I got my first naked-eye view of the 7°-long Pipe Nebula (LDN 1773) at the 1983 Texas Star Party. This nebula is in southern Ophiuchus, around [...]

Six years ago researchers detected a strange nebula - a long, faint bubble with pointy ends - surrounding a dying, low-mass star. The nebula, KjPn (Kazarian-Parsamian) 8 in Cassiopeia, is [...]

The Ring Nebula in Lyra was discovered by Antoine Darquier de Pellepoix of Toulouse in 1779. He described it as 'extremely faint, but perfectly outlined. It is as large as [...]

Is the Orion Nebula awash in loose planets? As with so many things, it depends on definitions. Astronomers recently determined that part of the Orion Nebula is replete with young [...]

It's never too late for spring cleaning. There are always worlds to tidy and nebulae to dust. In fact, the Veil Nebula in Cygnus is getting feather-dusted by the tip [...]

Take a balloon and put it in a napkin ring, then inflate. Instead of one spherical balloon, you end up with two lobes. The same process apparently explains the bipolar […]

The Hubble Space Telescope science team chose a photogenic object for the orbiting observatory's first image following last December's repair mission, in which astronauts replaced the crippled telescope's six gyroscopes [...]

The Cat's Eye Nebula (NGC 6543 in Draco) is a bright planetary nebula that has intrigued astronomers for nearly a century. The Hubble Space Telescope captured sharp images of the [...]

Unexpected discoveries come about when the sky is observed through new and better instruments. One photogenic example was published in 1993 shortly after two astronomers used a new infrared camera [...]

The stately progression of starbirth is one of the most beautiful processes seen in the universe. Yet it's one that astronomers have only recently been able to study in any [...]

An international team of astronomers recently produced the first three- dimensional view of one of the nearest planetary nebulae, NGC 7293, popularly known as the Helix. Ken Young (Smithsonian Astrophysical [...]

THE FAMILIAR W (or M) of Cassiopeia stands high on January evenings. Queen Cass possesses numerous open star clusters but relatively few emission nebulae. Over several velvet-dark nights in the [...]

TUCKED IN the southeastern corner of Cassiopeia are the immense H II regions IC 1805 and IC 1848, popularly known as the Heart and Soul Nebulae. These faintly glowing clouds [...]

This expansive star-birth region in Cygnus features the North America Nebula at left and the Pelican Nebula (IC 5067) at right, separated by an extremely thick column of dust. Details: [...]

Most stargazers have heard of the Veil Nebula, the ghostly remnant of a supernova that exploded in Cygnus 5,000 to 10,000 years ago, but few have seen it well. Its [...]

A PAINTING OWES its color to its artist, but the colors of interstellar nebulae arise from the stars that illuminate them. Although many such clouds are red, the obscure Witch [...]

SEEING NOTHING is an oxymoron. If you see, then your eye-brain system is sensing something. And that's just how it is when we're looking at the limits of our vision [...]

The Gum Nebula, named for Australian astronomer Colin Stanley Gum, who cataloged southern hydrogen-alpha clouds, is one of the closest supernova remnants. At a distance of roughly 450 light-years, the [...]