Astronomy photos from the Dwarf 3 telescope

These images are of the Cocoon Nebula, a cluster of stars involved in a bright and dark nebula in the constellation Cygnus. The dark nebula Barnard 168 (B168) is an inseparable part of the experience, forming a dark dust lane that surrounds the cluster and projects to the right forming the appearance of a trail behind the Cocoon. The Cacoon Nebula is a stellar nursery where star-formation is ongoing. Observations by both the Spitzer Space Telescope and the Chandra X-ray Observatory have collectively identified hundreds of young stellar objects. In this image, the dust lane is visible off to the nebula's right. Final image zoomed in. This nebula qualified to be the image in NASA's Astronomy Photo of the day back in 2024 (image by Luis Romero Ventura).

From a campground at Lake Kachese. Four hours of photographs, each image 30 seconds long.

I think this was a night with a mistake. I had begun the evening targeting The Splinter Galaxy, but by the time I set up the telescope, I had mistakenly entered The Spindle Galaxy as my target. The Spindle Galaxy is Messier 102 and is located in the constellation Draco the Dragon. The Splinter Galaxy is located above and to the left corner of The Spindle so it is in the image, but way off center and clipped by what appears to be a plane that was not dropped out of the stacked image. Here is the original image of Messier 102, The Spindle Galaxy, centered in this image. Here is a zoomed in image of Messier 102, the Spindle Galaxy. Finally, here is a zoomed in image of The Splinter Galaxy or The Knife Edge Galaxy. The plane's path more visible in this image. This final image is not mine, but it is so striking that I wanted to include it. This Splinter Galaxy has a stream of material or a stream structure surrounding it. Photo by R. Jay GaBany. Enjoy!

The Owl Nebula (also known as Messier 97, M97) is a planetary nebula approximately 2,030 light years away in the constellation Ursa Major. Estimated to be about 8,000 years old, it is approximately circular in cross-section with a faint internal structure. Planetary nebulae have nothing to do with planets. They simply appeared kinda like planets in telescopes long ago, their glowing disks suggesting a name that linked them to actual planetary disks. The summer sky is filled with planetary nebulae, and these objects give us a look at our solar system’s future. Some 6 billion years from now our Sun will transform into a white dwarf star and a planetary nebulae envelope, long after life on Earth is gone. The Owl Nebula, lying in our sky below the bowl of the Big Dipper, is a great example. Catalogued as Messier 97, the Owl is a bright planetary named for its two dark “eyes,” and it consists of three distinct shells. The asymmetry of the inner shell, with a barrel-like structure tipped...

Messier 13, or M13 (sometimes called the Great Globular Cluster in Hercules, the Hercules Globular Cluster, or the Great Hercules Cluster), is a globular cluster of several hundred thousand stars in the constellation of Hercules. Single stars in this globular cluster were first resolved in 1779. Compared to the stars in the neighborhood of the Sun, the stars of the M13 population are more than a hundred times more densely packed. They are so close together that they sometimes collide and produce new stars. The newly formed, young stars, known as "blue stragglers", are particularly interesting to astronomers. This photo is the result of of the telscope taking 137 individual photos of 60 seconds each, then stacking them on top of each other to create additional detail. This is the second time I have imaged this cluster. The two images are considerably different quality though. Here is the first image from March of 2025, certainly disappointing. And here is last night...