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We haven't had a good supernova in a while but here is a remnant from one that happened over 900 years ago. It
was visible on Earth for 22 days during the day (and almost 2 years at night) even though it was 6400 light years away.
By contrast, the brightest star in the sky, Sirius, is about 800 times closer (remember that brightness decreases with the
square of distance). At its brightest, it was 4 times brighter than Venus. Even today, the nebula is 1000 times
brighter than the Sun (in visible light) and 100,000 times brighter considering every wavelength. Maybe that's why my
son is fascinated with them...
| Crab Nebula, M1 in Taurus, LpRGB, f5, 2/11/09 |
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| Supernova remnant (white dwarf star blew up in 1084). Was mistaken by Messier for Comet Halley. |
Located about 5 or 6 thousand LY away. There is a cluster of about 35 hot young stars that excite the interstellar
matter and cause it to shine. It's also called the Omega Nebula. Taken in the dark skies of west TX.
| M17 Swan Nebula in LRGB |
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| One of the big summer nebulae. Located in Sagitarius. |
M5 is in Serpens and contains over 100 variable stars. Obtained using the telescope and the focal reducer.
It's more compact than the following GC but part of that may be due to the difference in distance.
| Globular Cluster M5 |
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| This GC is more compact than M4 (below) but 3 times farther away. Brightened to show inner core. |
This globular cluster (GC) is one of the closest to Earth (about 7,200 light years away). It probably has several
hundred thousand stars and they are all very old. It is a very "loose" GC and stars are easily resolved by telescopes.
In a longer exposure though, you would see a bigger mass of stars. I kind of like seeing it like this :).
| Globular Cluster M4 in Scorpius |
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| Only exposed for a few seconds through telescope. May be a galaxy's remnants swallowed by milky way |
This was taken with my Olympus Camera in an 8 second shot.
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