What’s behind the Veil? Thousands of years ago, there was a massive super-nova explosion in the constellation, Cygnus. The remnants of that explosion formed a nebula called the Cygnus Loop. It looks like this: Cygnus Loop is about 120 light years across and has a magnitude of +5. It is believed to be about 20,000 […]

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This is M31, the Andromeda Galaxy. It is the nearest large galaxy to the Milky Way.    And with every passing day it gets a little closer.  In fact, M31 is due to collide with the Milky Way in about 4.5 million years! M31 has a visual magnitude of +3.28 and a surface area larger than […]

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This is M8, the Lagoon Nebula. M8 is about 4.3 thousand light-years away from us and has a visual magnitude of +6.0. It is a star formation area. M8 was discovered by Giovanni Battista Hodierna in the mid-1600s. Charles Messier cataloged it in 1764. You might be able to spot M8 with your naked eye […]

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Have you ever lost a galaxy? This is M91: It was discovered by Charles Messier in 1781.  It’s a very faint galaxy (magnitude +10.0) in the Virgo Cluster that’s about 63 million light-years away from us.  Unfortunately, Messier made a clerical mistake when he cataloged M91.  He listed its location as being relative to M58, […]

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Here is something really cool, (at least for an astronomer!) This is M87: It’s a fairly unexciting elliptical galaxy that was discovered by Charles Messier in 1781. I find that pretty interesting since I think it would have been pretty difficult to see with the 4-inch telescope he used. M87 has a visual magnitude of […]

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This is an image of NGC 4485 and 4490, the Cocoon Galaxies. The smaller galaxy is NGC 4485. These galaxies collided with each other several million years ago. The encounter of the two galaxies distorted their shape and appears to have started a large amount of star creation in both. The blue colors indicate huge […]

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March is a special time of year for astronomers. The constellation Virgo begins to rise right after dusk, and along with it there are a multitude of galaxies that can be seen with binoculars or small telescopes. Two of my favorites are M81 and M82. M81 (on the left) and M82 are both about 12 […]

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The Other Orion Nebulae! Last month I showed you the famous Orion Nebula, but the Orion Constellation contains several other spectacular nebulae including the Flame and Horsehead Nebula! Both of these nebulae are actually composed of two distinct objects. In each case, there is an emission nebula that is partially blocked by a dark cloud […]

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January is a great month for the Pleiades and the Orion Nebula On just about any clear night in January, the Pleiades will be visible in the eastern skies about an hour after sundown. M45, the Pleiades, is probably my favorite star cluster. With a visual magnitude of +1.1, it’s very easy to spot with […]

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Island residents and visitors should keep an eye out in the month of December for Comet Leonard – a recently discovered comet that will be passing through the night skies through the end of the year. The above image, captured by Gerry Lebing, is actually a stack of 43 images that shows the comet’s path […]

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