This Striking Image Captures The Interacting galaxy pair Known As Arp-Madore 2339-661, So Named Because

Skyshark

Man sees what he wants to see, and so it is with the Dark Nebula LDN 1235. This collection of dust in the constellation Cepheus is very reminiscent of a shark. At just 650 light years away, it is just around the corner.

Object type: Dark nebula

Constellation: Cepheus

Total exposure: 720 minutes

Image data:

- RGB 144 x 300s / Gain 100

- 25 flats

- 25 Bias

- 25 Darks

Setup:

- Skywatcher 150/750 F5 PDS

- Omegon 571C

- Skywatcher EQ6R Pro

- Two Asi 178mm as guide cam

Video of the Day!

NASA's Parker Solar Probe broke a record! It got within 3.8 million miles of the Sun's surface - closer than any human-made object before! Not only that, it's the fastest human-made object, reaching a speed of about 435,000 mph.

3/26: Public night is cancelled tonight due to clouds. We'll try again next week.

We'll be open April 8th for the eclipse, too, with solar filters and projections of the Sun. Find us at Bridgewater State University's Science and Mathematics Center.

Messier-20 is called the “Trifid Nebula” because of the three bright lobes in the lower purple-coloured area. This purple region is emitting light, while the upper blue area is just reflecting it.

It is a local star-forming region in our Milky Way galaxy (4,000 light years away). (at Bordeaux, France) https://www.instagram.com/p/B1bxBljC5H9/?igshid=1g0i6zddk37k

"The Imperfect Angel Nebula", NGC 2170 // zombi

Space News!

A star located 12,000 lightyears from Earth engulfed one of its planets! It was previously believed that planets were engulfed by their stars expanding, but that isn't the case here. The planet, over millions of years, orbited closer to its star, to the point it was eventually engulfed by the star. The image is an artist's rendition of what happened.

We're Open Tonight!

The observatory will be open tonight, Sept. 27, 7:30 - 9:00 pm! We expect mostly clear skies, and to see Saturn, the Moon, the Ring Nebula, globular cluster M13, the Andromeda Galaxy, the Double Cluster, and the binary star systems Albireo and Mizar.

Here's a a nice picture of the Double Cluster in the constellation Perseus (we didn't take this picture, but it's similar to what you'd see through our telescopes - you won't see a lot of those dim background stars, though). [Image Credit and Copyright: Greg Polanski | Source: Astronomy Picture of the Day].

Wed. 11/6: We'll be closed tonight - we expect lots of clouds rolling in after sunset. We'll try again next week!

So far, we think the sky will cooperate enough for us to see tomorrow's eclipse! We'll be handing out eclipse glasses around DMF tomorrow, and some other locations on campus from 10:30 am - 2:45 pm. Check back one more time in the morning about the weather.