Meteor Shower At Mt Changbai

In the North this is known as a winter meteor shower, the 2014 Geminids rain down on this rugged, frozen landscape.

This was taken from the summit of Mt. Changbai along China's northeastern border with North Korea.

Orion is near picture center above the volcanic cater lake. The shower's radiant in the constellation Gemini is to the upper left, at the orgin of all the meteor streaks.

Paying the price for such a dreamlike view of the celestial spectacle, photographer Jia Hao reported severe wind gusts and a freezing -34 degree C temperatures near the summit.

Mount Elbrus Magick

Would love to be here!!
This is the Peak Terskol Observatory in the northern Caucasus Mountains of Russia. Inside the white dome is a 2-meter telescope.

The observatory is located on a shoulder of Mt. Elbrus, the highest mountain in Europe, with other peaks visible in the background. 

Far in the distance is the most distant layer: the stars and nebulas of the night sky, with the central band of the Milky Way rising on the image right. So lovely. We are so blessed heart emoticon

Cave Nebula

Sh2-155, or better known as the Cave Nebula basking in the glow of ionized sulfur, hydrogen, and oxygen atoms in red, green, and blue hues.

About 2,400 light-years away, the cave nebula is toward the royal northern constellation of Cepheus. Astronomical explorations of the region reveal that it has formed at the boundary of the massive Cepheus B molecular cloud and the hot, young stars of the Cepheus OB 3 association. 

The bright rim of ionized interstellar gas is energized by radiation from the hot stars, dominated by the bright star just above picture center. This stellar nursery is. about 10 light-years across.

Trapezium Stars

The heart of the Orion Nebula! heart emoticon
In the centre, there are four hot, massive stars known as the Trapezium. 

Ultraviolet ionizing radiation from the Trapezium stars, mostly from the brightest star Theta-1 Orionis C.

We are guessing that it is about three million years old, the Orion Nebula Cluster was even more compact in its younger years and a dynamical study indicates that runaway stellar collisions at an earlier age may have formed a black hole with more than 100 times the mass of the Sun.

The presence of a black hole within the cluster could explain the observed high velocities of the Trapezium stars. The Orion Nebula's distance of some 1,500 light-years would make it the closest known black hole to planet Earth.

Who Lives 6000 Miles away...

Beautiful NGC 6914. The complex of nebulae lies some 6,000 light-years away, toward the high-flying northern constellation Cygnus and the plane of our Milky Way Galaxy. 

The view spans nearly 50 light-years at the estimated distance of NGC 6914. There is no nickname for this nebulae- what name do you think it resonates with?

The Fox and The Unicorn

What do the following things have in common: a cone, the fur of a fox, and a Christmas tree? Answer: they all occur in the constellation of the unicorn (Monoceros).

Pictured as a star forming region and cataloged as NGC 2264, the complex jumble of cosmic gas and dust is about 2,700 light-years distant and mixes reddish emission nebulae excited by energetic light from newborn stars with dark interstellar dust clouds. 
Gorgeous! heart emoticon

Pillars Of Creation

Just when you think you can't be anymore amazed by the radiance of our beloved Cosmos- Hubble gives us THIS!!
To celebrate 25 years (1990-2015) of exploring the Universe from low Earth orbit, the Hubble Space Telescope's cameras were used to revisit its most iconic image. 

Dubbed the "Pillars of Creation", stars are forming deep inside the towering structures. 
The light-years long columns of cold gas and dust are some 6,500 light-years distant in M16, the Eagle Nebula, toward the constellation Serpens.

Near The Southern Crown...

Cosmic dust clouds and young, energetic stars inhabit this beauty- less than 500 light-years away toward the northern boundary of Corona Australis, the Southern Crown. 

The dust clouds block light from more distant background stars in the Milky Way however the nebulae NGC 6726, 6727, and IC 4812 give off a blue color as light from the region's young hot stars is reflected by the cosmic dust.

M42

The Great Nebula in Orion, an immense starbirth region, is probably the most famous of all astronomical nebulas. Wow!

Here, glowing gas surrounds hot young stars at the edge of an immense interstellar molecular cloud only 1500 light-years away. In the above deep image composite in assigned colors taken by the Hubble Space Telescope wisps and sheets of dust and gas are particularly evident.

The Great Nebula in Orion can be found with the unaided eye near the easily identifiable belt of three stars (Mintaka, Alnilam, Alnitak) in the popular constellation Orion.
In addition to housing a bright open cluster of stars known as the Trapezium, the Orion Nebula contains many stellar nurseries.

These nurseries contain much hydrogen gas, hot young stars and stellar jets spewing material at high speeds. Also known as M42, the Orion Nebula spans about 40 light years and is located in the same spiral arm of our Galaxy as the Sun.

45 Million Light Years Away...

45 million Light Years from us!! That is an astronomical number considering that ONE light year is 5.878 trillion miles. You do the math!
Spiral galaxy NGC 1097 shines in southern skies, in the constellation Fornax.

Trapezium In Orion

The Great Nebula in Orion, an immense, nearby starbirth region, is probably the most famous of all astronomical nebulas.

Here, glowing gas surrounds hot young stars at the edge of an immense interstellar molecular cloud only 1500 LY's away.

The Great Nebula in Orion can be found with the unaided eye near the easily identifiable belt of three stars in the popular constellation Orion: Alnitak, Alnilam and Mintaka.

In addition to housing a bright open cluster of stars known as the Trapezium, the Orion Nebula contains many stellar nurseries. These nurseries contain much hydrogen gas, hot young stars, proplyds, and stellar jets spewing material at high speeds. Also known as M42, the Orion Nebula spans about 40 light years and is located in the same spiral arm of our Galaxy as the Sun.

Soap Bubble Nebula

Anyone need to wash?
Adrift in the rich star fields of the constellation Cygnus, this lovely, symmetric nebula was only recognized a few years ago and does not yet appear in some astronomical catalogs. I

In fact, amateur astronomer Dave Jurasevich identified it as a nebula on 2008 July 6 in his images of the complex Cygnus region that included the Crescent Nebula (NGC 6888). 

He subsequently notified the International Astronomical Union. Only eleven days later the same object was independently identified by Mel Helm at Sierra Remote Observatories, imaged by Keith Quattrocchi and Helm, and also submitted to the IAU as a potentially unknown nebula. The nebula, appearing on the left of the featured image, is now known as the Soap Bubble Nebula. 

Unicorn Constellation

Constellation of Unicorn!! This is just breathtaking. This is the Fox Fur Nebula, NGC 2264. approx 2700 LY's from us. This almost looks computer simulated it looks that unreal. What beauty we are blessed with. heart emoticon

Orion Molecular Cloud Complex

The constellation of Orion holds much more than three stars in a row. 

A deep exposure shows everything from dark nebula to star clusters, all embedded in an extended patch of gaseous wisps in the greater Orion Molecular Cloud Complex. 

The brightest three stars on the far left are indeed the famous three stars that make up the belt of Orion. Just below Alnitak, the lowest of the three belt stars, is the Flame Nebula, glowing with excited hydrogen gas and immersed in filaments of dark brown dust.

Below the frame center and just to the right of Alnitak lies the Horsehead Nebula, a dark indentation of dense dust that has perhaps the most recognized nebular shapes on the sky.

On the upper right lies M42, the Orion Nebula, an energetic caldron of tumultuous gas, visible to the unaided eye, that is giving birth to a new open cluster of stars.

Immediately to the left of M42 is a prominent bluish reflection nebula sometimes called the Running Man that houses many bright blue stars. The above image, a digitally stitched composite taken over several nights, covers an area with objects that are roughly 1,500 light years away and spans about 75 light years. WOW! heart emoticon

HEART Chakra Of The Planet

Heart Chakra of Planet Earth heart emoticon 
Over the 10,000 foot summit of Haleakala on Maui, a cloud layer seeps over the volcanic caldera's edge with the Milky Way and starry night sky above.

The Eagle Nebula M16

The beauty of the Eagle Nebula glows bright!

Pillars of dark dust nicely outline some of the denser towers of star formation. 
Energetic light from young massive stars causes the gas to glow and effectively boils away part of the dust and gas from its birth pillar. 

Many of these stars will explode after several million years, returning most of their elements back to the nebula which formed them. This process is forming an open cluster of stars known as M16. Wow!

The Great Nebula In Orion

One of those pictures that make you GASP.
The Great Nebula in Orion is an intriguing place. Visible to the unaided eye, it appears as a small fuzzy patch in the constellation of Orion. 
But this image, shows the Orion Nebula to be a bustling neighborhood or recently formed stars, hot gas, and dark dust. The power behind much of the Orion Nebula (M42) is the stars of the Trapezium star cluster, seen near the center of the above wide field image.
The orange glow surrounding the bright stars pictured here is their own starlight reflected by intricate dust filaments that cover much of the region. The current Orion Nebula cloud complex, which includes the Horsehead Nebula, will slowly disperse over the next 100,000 years.

Butterfly Nebula M2-9

::::Will never tire of seeing this::::
In the case of low-mass stars like our Sun and Butterfly nebula (M2-9) pictured above, the stars transform themselves from normal stars to white dwarfs by casting off their outer gaseous envelopes. 

The expended gas frequently forms an impressive display called a planetary nebula that fades gradually over thousand of years. M2-9, a butterfly planetary nebula 2100 light-years away shown in representative colors, has wings that tell a strange but incomplete tale. In the center, two stars orbit inside a gaseous disk 10 times the orbit of Pluto.

The expelled envelope of the dying star breaks out from the disk creating the bipolar appearance. Much remains unknown about the physical processes that cause planetary nebulae.

NGC 1999 :: Orion Nebula

Highly Enigmatic......South of the large star-forming region known as the Orion Nebula, lies bright blue reflection nebula NGC 1999. 

At the edge of the Orion molecular cloud complex some 1,500 light-years distant, NGC 1999's illumination is provided by the embedded variable star V380 Orionis. 

That nebula is marked with a dark sideways T-shape near center in this cosmic vista that spans about 10 light-years.

The dark shape was once assumed to be an obscuring dust cloud seen in silhouette against the bright reflection nebula. But recent infrared images indicate the shape is likely a hole blown through the nebula itself by energetic young stars. In fact, this region abounds with energetic young stars producing jets and outflows with luminous shock waves.

Seven Strong Men Of Russia!

You may have heard of the Seven Sisters in the sky, but have you heard about the Seven Strong Men on the ground?!! (note the small guy next to one of them)

Located just west of the Ural Mountains, the unusual Manpupuner rock formations are one of the Seven Wonders of Russia. 

How these ancient 40-meter high pillars formed is yet unknown. The persistent photographer of this featured image battled rough terrain and uncooperative weather to capture these rugged stone towers in winter at night, being finally successful in February of last year.

High above, millions of stars shine down, while the band of our Milky Way Galaxy crosses diagonally down from the upper left.

Star Forming Complex W33

The cosmic cloud of gas and dust is W33, a massive starforming complex some 13,000 light-years distant, near the plane of our Milky Way Galaxy. So what are all those yellow balls? Citizen scientists of the web-based Milky Way Project found the features they called yellow balls as they scanned many Spitzer images and persistently asked that question of researchers. 

Now there is an answer. The yellow balls in Spitzer images are identified as an early stage of massive star formation.

They appear yellow because they are overlapping regions of red and green, the assigned colors that correspond to dust and organic molecules known as PAHs at Spitzer wavelengths.

Yellow balls represent the stage before newborn massive stars clear out cavities in their surrounding gas and dust and appear as green-rimmed bubbles with red centers in the Spitzer image. Of course, the astronomical crowdsourcing success story is only part of the Zooniverse. The Spitzer image spans 0.5 degrees or about 100 light-years at the estimated distance of W33

The 'Mice' Galaxies

These two mighty galaxies are pulling each other apart!!

Known as the "Mice" because they have such long tails, each spiral galaxy has likely already passed through the other.

The long tails are created by the relative difference between gravitational pulls on the near and far parts of each galaxy.

Because the distances are so large, the cosmic interaction takes place in slow motion -- over hundreds of millions of years.

NGC 4676 lies about 300 million light-years away toward the constellation of Bernice's Hair (Coma Berenices) and are likely members of the Coma Cluster of Galaxies.

The above picture was taken with the Hubble Space Telescope's Advanced Camera for Surveys in 2002. These galactic mice will probably collide again and again over the next billion years until they coalesce to form a single galaxy.

Open Cluster PISMIS 24

:::An ALL TIME favorite part of the cosmos for me :::

How massive can a normal star be? Estimates made from distance, brightness and standard solar models had given one star in the open cluster Pismis 24 over 200 times the mass of our Sun, nearly making it the record holder. This star is the brightest object located just above the gas front in the above image. 

Close inspection of images taken with the Hubble Space Telescope, however, have shown that Pismis 24-1 derives its brilliant luminosity not from a single star but from three at least. Component stars would still remain near 100 solar masses, making them among the more massive stars currently on record. 

Toward the bottom of the image, stars are still forming in the associated emission nebula NGC 6357. Appearing perhaps like a Gothic cathedral, energetic stars near the center appear to be breaking out and illuminating a spectacular cocoon.

Red Streaks In the Sky Over Minnesota

What are those red streaks in the sky? 

While photographing unexpected auroras over a distant thunderstorm, something extraordinary happened: red sprites. 

This brief instance of rarely imaged high-altitude lightning flashed so bright that it was witnessed by several people independently. Pictured over Minnesota, USA in May 2013, these red sprites likely followed an extremely powerful low-altitude conventional lightning bolt. 

Captured in the featured frame are a house and electrical pole in the foreground, thick clouds in the lower atmosphere, a lightning storm on the horizon, distant red sprites and green aurora in the upper atmosphere, and distant stars from our local neighborhood of the Milky Way Galaxy. 

The spectacular image is thought to be only the second known case of sprites and auroras photographed together, and possibly the first in true color.

Carina Nebula (Pronouced Ca RYE Nah)

www.andulairah.com

This cosmic pillar of gas and dust is nearly two light-years wide!

The structure lies within one of our galaxy's largest star forming regions, the Carina Nebula, shining in southern skies at a distance of about 7,500 light-years. 

The pillar's convoluted outlines are shaped by the winds and radiation of Carina's young, hot, massive stars. But the interior of the cosmic pillar itself is home to stars in the process of formation.

In fact, a penetrating infrared view shows the pillar is dominated by two, narrow, energetic jets blasting outward from a still hidden infant star. The above featured visible light image was made in 2009 using the Hubble Space Telescope's Wide Field Camera 3.

Pac Man Nebula

I feel like the answers to life are all through nature and that the cosmos is telling us a story...

Look through the cosmic cloud cataloged as NGC 281 and it's almost easy to miss stars of open cluster IC 1590.

But, formed within the nebula, that cluster's young, massive stars ultimately power the pervasive nebular glow. 

The eye-catching shapes looming in this portrait of NGC 281 are sculpted columns and dense dust globules seen in silhouette, eroded by intense, energetic winds and radiation from the hot cluster stars. If they survive long enough, the dusty structures could also be sites of future star formation. 

Playfully called the Pacman Nebula because of its overall shape, NGC 281 is about 10,000 light-years away in the constellation Cassiopeia. This composite image was made through narrow-band filters, but combines emission from the nebula's hydrogen, sulfur, and oxygen atoms in a visible spectrum palette. It spans over 80 light-years at the estimated distance of NGC 281.

Two Large Galaxies Colliding

How pretty...Some 60 million light-years away in the southerly constellation Corvus, two large galaxies are colliding

NGC 4921

A mind boggling picture.

Just how much life could be in that one galaxy NGC 4921? (not to mention all the other galaxies around it

How far away is spiral galaxy NGC 4921? Although presently estimated to be about 310 million light years distant, a more precise determination could be coupled with its known recession speed to help humanity better calibrate the expansion rate of the entire visible universe. 

Toward this goal, several images were taken by the Hubble Space Telescope in order to help identify key stellar distance markers known as Cepheid variable stars. Since NGC 4921 is a member of the Coma Cluster of Galaxies, refining its distance would also allow a better distance determination to one of the largest nearby clusters in the local universe. 

The magnificent spiral NGC 4921 has been informally dubbed anemic because of its low rate of star formation and low surface brightness. Visible in the above image are, from the center, a bright nucleus, a bright central bar, a prominent ring of dark dust, blue clusters of recently formed stars, several smaller companion galaxies, unrelated galaxies in the far distant universe, and unrelated stars in our Milky Way Galaxy.

The Flame Nebula

What lights up the Flame Nebula? 

Fifteen hundred light years away towards the constellation of Orion lies a nebula which, from its glow and dark dust lanes, appears, on the left, like a billowing fire. 

But fire, the rapid acquisition of oxygen, is not what makes this Flame glow. Rather the bright star Alnitak, the easternmost star in the Belt of Orion visible just above the nebula, shines energetic light into the Flame that knocks electrons away from the great clouds of hydrogen gas that reside there. Much of the glow results when the electrons and ionized hydrogen recombine. 

The Flame Nebula is part of the Orion Molecular Cloud Complex, a star-forming region that includes the famous Horsehead Nebula, visible above on the far right.

Tadpole Nebula

Hard to believe that a image like this is real! What beauty 

Tadpole Nebula approx 12,000 LY's from Earth in the constellation of Auriga