Apod 3.4

This is an image of the M106 galaxy. The image itself is made of pictures taken from Earth and space of the galaxy. M106 is 23.5 million light-years from Earth. That makes the length of this image close to 80,000 light-years across.

Apod 3.3

This is an image of the Trifid Nebula. It is near the center of Sagittarius, the archer. Trifid gets its name from the three prominent dust lanes in its center. Most of this nebula's glow comes from the single massive star at its center.

Apod 3.2

This is the Great Nebula inside Orion. It is visible to the naked eye as a small fuzzy patch. This image is an illusory-color composite of four different colors of infrared light. The green glow in the image is caused by the reflection of the light of the stars off of dust filaments that are scattered throughout the region.

Babby's First Moon Atlas

Apod 3.1

This is NGC 2623. It's actually two separate galaxies that are slowly merging together. The tails of the galexies are composed of dust, gas, and blue star clusters.

Q2 Observation Log

December 9th - 7-9pm (Stargaze Session)
Location: Pine View
Viewing techniques used: Naked eye, binoculars, telescope
Saw:
Space Station and a shooting star
Multiple M objects
Jupiter and some of its moons

 January 11th - 8-10pm
Location: Glebe Park
Viewing techniques used: Naked eye
Saw:
Orion
Taurus
Jupiter
I'm pretty sure I saw Mars too

January 13th - 7-9pm
Location: Glebe Park
Viewing Techniques used: Naked Eye
Saw:
Cetus, Pisces, Lacerta, Cassiopeia

Apod 2.8

This is a sharp infrared closeup of the outskirts of the Orion Nebula, which is 1500 light-years away. The "bullets" in this picture are actually hot, dense gas clouds moving at hundreds of kilometers per second. The glow of the bullets is produced by ionized iron atoms.