Comet Olbers over Kunetice Castle

A visitor to the inner solar system every 70 years or so Comet 13P/Olbers reached its most recent perihelion, or closest approach to the Sun, on June 30 2024. Now on a return voyage to the distant Oort cloud the Halley-type comet is recorded here sweeping through northern summer night skies over historic Kunetice Castle, Czech Republic. Along with a broad dust tail, and brighter coma, this comet's long ion tail buffeted by storms and winds from the Sun, is revealed in the composite of tracked exposures for comet and sky, and fixed exposures for foreground landscape recorded on July 28. The comet is about 16 light-minutes beyond the castle and seen against faint background stars below the northern constellation Ursa Major. The hilltop castle dates to the 15th century, while Heinrich Olbers discovered the comet in 1815. Captured here low in northwestern skies just after sunset Comet Olbers, for now, offers skywatchers on planet Earth rewarding telescopic and binocular views. Comet 13P/Olbers next perihelion passage will be in 2094.

from NASA https://ift.tt/8SKcBx5

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The Pencil Nebula Supernova Shock Wave

This supernova shock wave plows through interstellar space at over 500,000 kilometers per hour. Near the middle and moving up in this sharply detailed color composite , thin, bright, braided filaments are actually long ripples in a cosmic sheet of glowing gas seen almost edge-on. Cataloged as NGC 2736 , its elongated appearance suggests its popular name, the Pencil Nebula . The Pencil Nebula is about 5 light-years long and 800 light-years away, but represents only a small part of the Vela supernova remnant . The Vela remnant itself is around 100 light-years in diameter, the expanding debris cloud of a star that was seen to explode about 11,000 years ago. Initially, the shock wave was moving at millions of kilometers per hour but has slowed considerably, sweeping up surrounding interstellar material. In the featured narrow-band, wide field image , red and blue colors track, primarily, the characteristic glows of ionized hydrogen and oxygen atoms , respectively. from NASA https...

This surprising sky has almost everything. First, slanting down from the upper left and far in the distance is the central band of our Milky Way Galaxy . More modestly, slanting down from the upper right and high in Earth's atmosphere is a bright meteor . The dim band of light across the central diagonal is zodiacal light : sunlight reflected from dust in the inner Solar System . The green glow on the far right is aurora high in Earth's atmosphere . The bright zigzagging bright line near the bottom is just a light that was held by the scene-planning astrophotographer . This " almost everything " sky was captured over rocks on Castle Hill , New Zealand late last month. The featured finished frame is a combination of 10 exposures all taken with the same camera and from the same location. But what about the astrophotographer himself? He's pictured too -- can you find him ? from NASA https://ift.tt/8TFhCw3

Lightning and Orion Beyond Uluru

What's happening behind Uluru? A United Nations World Heritage Site , Uluru is an extraordinary 350-meter high mountain in central Australia that rises sharply from nearly flat surroundings. Composed of sandstone , Uluru has slowly formed over the past 300 million years as softer rock eroded away. In the background of the featured image taken in mid-May, a raging thunderstorm is visible. Far behind both Uluru and the thunderstorm is a star-filled sky highlighted by the constellation of Orion. The Uluru region has been a home to humans for over 22,000 years. Local indigenous people have long noted that when the stars that compose the modern constellation of Orion first appear in the night sky, a hot season involving lightning storm s will soon be arriving. from NASA https://ift.tt/3uy2PLM

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