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| Emission Nebulae | ||||||||||||||
| Interstellar gas clouds energized by ultraviolet light from nearby stars. They emit radiation as their electrons fall back into lower energy states. Emission nebulae are usually the sites of recent and ongoing star formation. | ||||||||||||||
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| M42 The Great Orion Nebula. The most notable of it's type in our galaxy at 1600 light years in the constellation Orion. This image was obtained using an Orion ST80 refractor mounted on the Cave. Approximately 30 x 1 minute exposures using the Starlight MX716 ccd and a UHC filter (basically a combo of H-alpha, H-beta and O-III band pass, supposedly for visual use, but worked pretty well here!) | ||||||||||||||
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| M16- The Eagle Nebula in the constellation Serpens toward the galactic center. The left hand image was taken with the Cave and 0.6 focal reducer, again cropped to eliminate the field curvature distortions. The contrast and sharpness however is very promising for that day when I can finally take long exposures with it! The right image is a wide field view of that region of the Milky Way taken with the ST80 and an Astronomik 14nm H-alpha filter. The Eagle can be seen in the center. | ||||||||||||||
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| NGC2244- The Rosette Nebula at 5000 light years distant. Another image in H-alpha and again using the ST-80. 35 x 1minute subexposures stacked. Not too bad for a $200 achromatic refractor! | ||||||||||||||