The Needle Galaxy, NGC 4565 // Michael Cole

Happy Halloween, everyone!

2024 October 27

LDN 43: The Cosmic Bat Nebula Credit & Copyright: Mark Hanson and Mike Selby; Text: Michelle Thaller (NASA’s GSFC)

Explanation: What is the most spook-tacular nebula in the galaxy? One contender is LDN 43, which bears an astonishing resemblance to a vast cosmic bat flying amongst the stars on a dark Halloween night. Located about 1400 light years away in the constellation Ophiuchus, this molecular cloud is dense enough to block light not only from background stars, but from wisps of gas lit up by the nearby reflection nebula LBN 7. Far from being a harbinger of death, this 12-light year-long filament of gas and dust is actually a stellar nursery. Glowing with eerie light, the bat is lit up from inside by dense gaseous knots that have just formed young stars.

∞ Source: apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap241027.html

The Fireworks Galaxy. Imaged at Bridgewater State University Observatory, Fall 2019. Reprocessed 2025. Credit: BSU Experimental Astrophysics Research (BEAR) Team.

Wed. 11/20 - We'll be closed tonight due to clouds.

Many things in space stay the same for a human lifetime, but not the Bat Shadow. Hubble pictures taken 404 days apart show it “flapping” as the shadow changes position. It’s the result of a saddle-shaped disk: https://bit.ly/3Y5qu7W

2023 October 15

An Eclipse Tree Image Credit & Copyright: Shawn Wyre

Explanation: Yes, but can your tree do this? If you look closely at the ground in the featured image, you will see many images of yesterday’s solar eclipse – created by a tree. Gaps between tree leaves act like pinhole lenses and each create a small image of the partially eclipsed Sun visible in the other direction. The image was taken in Burleson, Texas, USA. Yesterday, people across the Americas were treated to a partial eclipse of the Sun, when the Moon moves in front of part of the Sun. People in a narrow band of Earth were treated to an annular eclipse, also called a ring-of-fire eclipse, when the Moon becomes completely engulfed by the Sun and sunlight streams around all of the Moon’s edges. In answer to the lede question, your tree not only can do this, but will do it every time that a visible solar eclipse passes overhead. Next April 8, a deeper, total solar eclipse will move across North America.

∞ Source: apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap231015.html

M104: The Sombrero Galaxy

Credits: Bray Falls

We'll be open tonight, Wed. 4/23, 8:30 - 9:45 pm! We expect lovely skies.

The Spaghetti Nebula, Sh2-240 // Wolfgang Bernhardt

Wed. 11/20 - We're not sure about tonight's weather yet. We'll try to decide by 3:30 pm if we'll open tonight.