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Hercules Cluster of Galaxies

The Hercules Cluster (Abell 2151) is a cluster of about 200 galaxies some 500 million light-years distant in the constellation Hercules. One of the coolest aspects of this cluster is […]

North America Nebula – NGC7000

Here’s a familiar shape in an unfamiliar location! This emission nebula is famous partly because it resembles Earth’s continent of North America. This emission nebula measures about 90 light-years from […]

Horsehead & Flame Nebula

I swapped my telescope AG Optical’s 10″ IDK (a type of reflector), which had 75 times magnification capability, with Stellarvue SV130, which is a refractor with 28 times magnification for […]

NGC4656

More commonly known as Hockey Stick Galaxy, NGC 4656 is a distorted edge-on spiral galaxy. Its distinctive shape is due to a recent gravitational interaction with the galaxy NGC 4631. […]

Seagull Nebula – IC2177

Seagull nebula (known as IC 2177) is a rather large nebula and has a shape resembling Seagull. The complex of gas and dust that forms the head of the seagull […]

M35 & NGC2158

Clusters of stars can be near or far, young or old, diffuse or compact. This image shows two quite contrasting open star clusters in the same field. M35, upper-center, is […]

Siamese Twins Galaxies

Spiral galaxy pair NGC 4567 and NGC 4568 (in center) share this area with lonely elliptical galaxy NGC 4564 (on left). All are members of the large Virgo Galaxy Cluster. […]

Fireworks Galaxy

From our vantage point in the Milky Way Galaxy, we see NGC 6946 face-on. The big, beautiful spiral galaxy is located 22 million light-years away, behind a veil of foreground […]

Monkey Head Nebula in Narrowband

The Monkey Head nebula – ngc2174 is an emission nebula (click here for an explanation on emission nebulae) located in the Orion Constellation. It was given this name because of […]

Eastern Veil Nebula

The Veil Nebula lies around 2,100 light-years from Earth in the constellation of Cygnus (the Swan), making it a relatively close neighbor in astronomical terms. The Veil Nebula is the […]

The Whale Galaxy

The Whale Galaxy (NGC4631) is a barred spiral galaxy in the constellation Canes Venatici. This galaxy’s slightly distorted wedge shape, gives it the appearance of a whale, hence its nickname. […]

M109

Messier 109 is a barred spiral galaxy exhibiting a weak inner ring structure around an obviously well-structured central bar approximately 83.5 ± 24 million light-years away in the constellation Ursa […]

Markarian Chain of Galaxies

Our galaxy is part of a group of galaxies that includes Andromeda, Pinwheel and about 80 other galaxies. This group is called ‘Local Group of Galaxies’. Neighboring to our group […]

Rosette Nebula

Would the Rosette Nebula by any other name look as sweet? Inside the nebula lies an open cluster of bright young stars designated NGC 2244. These stars formed about four […]

Leo Triplet

Famous as the Leo Triplet, the three magnificent galaxies gather in one field of view. They are NGC 3628 (right-bottom), M66 (top-right), and M65 (top-left). All three are large spiral […]

NGC 2903

NGC 2903 is a field barred spiral galaxy about 20 million light-years away in the constellation Leo. Just a little smaller than our own Milky Way, NGC 2903 is about […]

NGC 7538 – Puppy Nebula

NGC 7538, near the more famous Bubble Nebula, is located in the constellation Cepheus. It is located about 9,100 light-years from Earth. It is home to the biggest yet discovered […]

Cocoon Nebula

Cocoon Nebula (IC5146) is a beautiful nebula that is combination of an emission (pink) and reflection (blue) nebula. It has an apparent size of 12 arc minutes and is located […]

Pacman Nebula (NGC 281)

This is my first mosaic picture. My scope takes images at 75 times magnification. At that magnification, this object would have covered the entire frame, so I took 4 sets […]

Pelican Nebula

The prominent ridge of emission featured in image is designated IC 5067. It is part of a larger nebula with a distinctive shape, popularly called The Pelican Nebula, whose ridge […]

Silver Needle Galaxy (NGC4244)

NGC 4244, nicknamed the Silver Needle Galaxy is my next image. This galaxy spans some 65,000 light-years and lies around 13.5 million light-years away. It appears as a wafer-thin streak […]

Ring Nebula – M57

Dozens of planetary nebulae are visible in a small telescope, but none present such a distinctive and accessible appearance in a small telescope as the Ring Nebula (M57) in the […]

Tulip Nebula

Along the plane of our Milky Way Galaxy toward the nebula rich constellation Cygnus the Swan, this image is of SH2-101, popularly called the Tulip Nebula. About 8,000 light-years distant […]

Globular Cluster M5

Messier 5 (M5) is a globular star cluster, 100,000 stars or more, bound by gravity and packed into a region around 165 light-years in diameter. It lies some 25,000 light-years […]

Antennae Galaxies – NGC 4038

Some 60 million light-years away in the southerly constellation Corvus, two large galaxies are colliding, leaving a long tail of their erstwhile spiral arms. Spanning about 500 thousand light-years, the […]

M95 Galaxy in Leo

Barred spiral galaxy M95 is about 75,000 light-years across, somewhat smaller in size to our own Milky Way and one of the larger galaxies of the Leo galaxy group. In […]

M101 – The Pinwheel Galaxy

Probably the best example of a spiral Galaxy, M101 is known as the Pinwheel Galaxy for obvious reasons – it’s many spiral arms give a clear impression of a pinwheel. […]

The Owl Nebula – M97

After a few months of issues with my observatory, everything is working fine now and I am back into imaging. You will see a flurry of images during next week. […]

Cigar Galaxy (M82)

What’s lighting up the Cigar Galaxy? M82, as this irregular galaxy is also known, was stirred up by a recent pass near large spiral galaxy M81. This doesn’t fully explain […]

Thor’s Helmet – NGC 2359

This helmet-shaped nebula with apparent wings is popularly called Thor’s Helmet. Thor’s Helmet is about 30 light-years across. In fact, the helmet is more like an interstellar bubble, lit up […]

Fish Head Nebula – IC 1795

Fishhead Nebula (IC 1795) is a bright emission nebula of about 70 light-years across with glowing gas and dark lanes of obscuring dust, located just over 6,000 light-years away from […]

Silver Coin Galaxy (NGC 253)

With my lower magnification Stellarvue SV130 telescope, I imaged this galaxy again in 2023. Here is this image. Update 2022 NGC 253 is an intermediate spiral galaxy in the constellation […]

Lagoon Nebula (M8)

Lagoon Nebula is a rather large nebula about 4,100 light-years distant, in the direction of the center of our Milky Way Galaxy. Hot stars in the open star cluster (bright […]

Helix Nebula (NGC 7293)

From Garuda Nebula (vdB152) to Lord Shiva’s third eye! Helix Nebula is one of the most beautiful Planetary Nebulae. Planetary Nebula have nothing to do with planets. They are called […]

Swan Nebula – M17

This star forming region, known as Swan Nebula (concentrate only on the brighter part of the nebula to see a checkmark and extend leftward to see a rough swan shape), […]

vDB 152 – Dark Nebula

vdB 152 is a dark cloud of gas that is thick enough to obscure all the stars behind it and only some part of the nebula is shining in blue […]

Dumbbell Nebula

Dumbbell Nebula is a planetary nebula i.e. remains of a dying star. The red color is hydrogen gas clouds, and the greenish blue color consists of nitrogen and oxygen as […]

M16 – Queen Nebula

This is an image of M16- The Queen Nebula. It’s called Queen Nebula because you can, with some imagination, see a lady holding up her hands and with a flowing […]

Pinwheel Galaxy in Triangulum (M33)

Pinwheel Galaxy (M33) in Triangulum constellation is our neighbor. It is the second nearest galaxy to our Milky way (excluding our Milky Way’s satellites). It’s smaller than our galaxy – […]

Orion & Running Man Nebula

Here is the best nebula ever – The Orion Nebula (M42) – the object in the middle. It is the brightest nebula (a cloud of gas) as seen from earth […]

Bubble Nebula (NGC7635)

Bubble Nebula, a rare type of nebula, is an emission nebula in the constellation Cassiopeia. Although it looks delicate, the 7 light-year diameter bubble offers evidence of violent processes at […]

Horsehead Nebula

My most favorite deep sky object is Horsehead Nebula in Orion Constellation. It is visible as the dark indentation to the red emission nebula in the background. The horsehead feature […]

Bode’s Galaxy – M81

I have revisited this galaxy in 2020 and took a image with long duration of 19 hours. (43 images of 20 minutes each for Luminance & 9 images each of […]

Andromeda Galaxy (M31)

Andromeda Galaxy (M31) – Andromeda Galaxy is the nearest large Galaxy to Milky Way. It consists of 1 trillion stars. The Andromeda Galaxy is a spiral galaxy approximately 2.5 million […]

Whirlpool Galaxy (M51)

Those who follow my pictures closely will notice that I have imaged this galaxy many times. It’s because I love this galaxy and try to image it every year to […]