Galaxies for Fun

Home: Galaxies, Nebulae, Comets. They all can be inspiring.

There are many interesting galaxies and nebula for the amateur astronomer to observe. This website shows some general objects, as well as some more challenging peculiar galaxies, multiple systems and galaxy clusters. Every now and then, new CCD-photos and observing notes are added, to show what can be interesting and fun to observe.

This website shows some highlights gathered from the cosmical zoo. Most deep sky photos have been taken with an STL-11000M camera. Browse and pick your favorites to observe at your next observing session.

Observatory design and CCD-photos by Ivar Hamberg.

Link to old Gallery with more Photos

The Observatory: The observatory dome is situated on an island northeast of Stockholm.

Comet Tsuchinshan-ATLAS C/2023-A3: A late photo on Nov 5 2024 on the fading comet with my 12" RC telescope. A B/W luminance only photo. 7x30sec exposure.

Patch of Orange Aurora: The geomagnetic storm of August 12th, 2024 showed some orange hues. This was discussed to some extent on spaceweather.com during August. Here is a sequence taken from the beach of Ugglarp, just southeast of the city of Falkenberg Sweden. The orange hue appears in between the yellow/green area and the red area. It may probably be due to a color mix. We had a splendid view of the northern lights from this site, and we saw several Perseid meteors as well. A strong one shows up in the video of the full panorama. Look for the frame at second # 46!

Canon EOS Ra, 8-15mm Canon fisheye lens at 8mm/f/4

Date: Aug 12, 2024. 23.15-23.33 local. (21.15-21.33 UTC)

Series of 59 exposures, of 4 seconds each at ISO 6400.

Partial Eclipse of the Moon October 28, 2023:

This partial lunar eclipse showed the moon covered with some 6% by the earth shadow. (6% by area, or around 12% in diameter at maximum.) Anyhow, it was a beautiful sight and I was lucky to get an image of an aircraft streaking across the eclipsed moon. The shot was taken at 19.59 UTC in Nice, southern France.

Camera: Canon EOS Ra, ISO 100 ASA

Instrument: William Optics Megrez 90 mm refractor, with 0.8 field flattener.

Date. Oct 28, 2023.

Photo 1. 19.59 UTC 1/500 sec

Photo 2. 20.02 UTC 1/4 sec

Photo 3. 20.09 UTC 1/1000 sec

The first photo was on the cover page of spaceweather.com for October 29, 2023.

TO3717 HER-NTE

After checking the program "planefinder" I found out that it was flight TO3717 from Heraklion (Crete) in Greece to Nantes in France. It is a Boeing 737-800. It started at 20:32 local time (7 minutes late GMT+3) and arrived 23:23 local time (2 minutes ahead of schedule GMT+2). The flight was running at 386KTS (715 km/h) at an elevation of 36.000 FT (10.970 m) over Nice. Airline is Transavia-France.

Animation of AR3590 on 2024-Feb-25:

The sunspot group is shown with the H-alpha filter OFF and ON.

OFF -> The Photosphere

ON -> The Chromosphere

Time: 07.57 and 08.07 UTC

Instrument: 90 mm WO, with Baader ERF, Quark-C, ASI183MM.

Process: SharpCap, Registax6, MaximDL, ezgif.

Animation of AR3359 on 2023-July-04: The sunspot group is shown with the H-alpha filter OFF and ON.

OFF -> The Photosphere

ON -> The Chromosphere

Time: 09.16 and 09.20 UTC

Instrument: 115 mm APO with Baader ERF, Quark-C, ASI183MM.

Process: SharpCap, Registax6, MaximDL, ezgif.

AR3373 Activity Sequence on 2023-July-21: The sunspot group is shown with the H-alpha filter OFF and ON.

OFF -> The Photosphere

ON -> The Chromosphere with flare development.

Time: 09.00 to 11.54 UTC

Instrument: 115 mm APO with Baader ERF, Quark-C, ASI183MM.

Process: SharpCap, Registax6, MaximDL, ezgif.

(See H alpha Folder.)

AR 3217 with M3.1 class Flare on Feb 12, 09.15UT.

Sun in H-alpha 2023: The sun has been very active in 2023. Here are a few examples from January-February 2023.

1) AR 3190 was a huge sunspot, visible by unaided eye. Jan 18.

2) A great flamelike prominence was seen on Feb 03.

3) AR 3213 on Feb 09.

4) AR 3217 on Feb 12, with an M3.1 class Flare at 09.15 UT.

All taken with a WO90 mm refractor with Quark Chromosphere H-alpha filter. Same scale on these.

URANUS and NEPTUNE Reflectance Spectra, with METHANE Bands:

SPECTRUM:

Date: 2022-11-12, Stockholm.

URANUS: 3x300 sec exposure.

NEPTUNE: 3x300 sec exposure.

MOON: 10 sec exposure. (used as reference)

Instrument: 12" RC, 300 L/mm grating Spectrograph.

Processing: Dark field adjusted, hot pixel removal.

Calibrated to known solar absorption lines.

Data on CH4 bands are from R Walker Spectral Atlas, Plate 78, and Rspec.

COMMENTS:

This is a reflectance spectrum of sunlight reflected off the planets. Most features are from the sun's absorption bands. However, heavy absorption of methane (CH4) in the Uranus and Neptune atmospheres can easily be seen. The 6200 Ångström absorption band is maybe the most prominent. A few Telluric bands are also denoted.

- First diagram: raw profiles.

- Second diagram: flattend profiles.

Northern lights observed in Umeå, Sept 4, 2022:

There was a pretty strong aurora with Kp values around Kp6. The activity was ongoing the whole night.This is a time lapse with reduced resolution. More images under the Aurorae folder.

Eruption and Flare in AR 3088 on August 27, 2022: This group was extremely active with several M class eruptions. North is to the left.

The sequence is from 13:11 UT to 13:19 UT.

FLARES in AR3078 on August 17 and 18, 2022: The 3078 group area went crazy around August 17-18 with several flares. Here are images from 13:59 UT on Aug 17, and 11:10 UT on Aug 18. Intense bright flares were observed that changed rapidly. Taken with a WO 90mm refractor and a Quark Chromosphere filter.

AR3032 on June 15, 2022: This group is very complex and full of details. This is the first photo with a new setup using a 90mm refractor and a Quark Chromosphere filter. Detail below in BW some 24 min later.

AR3031 and 3037 on June 16, 2022: Another showpiece with fine details.

AR2938 and AR2936 on February 1, 2022: The new solar cycle has started with some vast and interesting regions. Also some great prominences, as the one from Feb 5th. Taken from Nice, France.

Nova Cassiopeiae 2021, V1405 Cas:

The nova is in the middle left portion of the image. To the right we have the Bubble Nebula NGC 7635.

The BW photo shows the nova in the center at magnitude 8.2 on March 22.

The spectrum curves are taken with a SA200 grating. Details in the Spectroscopy folder.

IC1805 and Melotte 15 in the Heart Nebula: This is a Ha-SHO representation of the center part of IC1805.

M81: Messier 81 is one of the classic spirals in the constellation Ursa Major. To the left, there is a tiny "smudge", which actually is a faint satellite galaxy. It is denoted Holmberg IX, or UGC 5336.

Giant Solar Prominence: This humongous prominence developed rather fast from July 30 to 31 (2020), and blew off the sun around mid-day July 31. I followed the eruption during a few hours, where large parts of the prominence material was thrown out into space.

M82: Messier 82 lies just a little north of M81. the center of the galaxy shows a violent and chaotic appearance. There is vivid starburst activities in this very luminous galaxy.

Abell 39: This is one of the more tricky planetaries to photograph or visually observe. Several faint galaxies can be seen through the bluish dish. The largest is at position "2 o´clock", and there is one at position "6 o´clock".

Comet NEOWISE: The great comet of the summer of 2020. when it was closest to earth. The comet was very bright, but hard to image, since the sky was not dark. Just a bright twilight on this July 23-24 image. Note the visible ion tail.

M101: In Ursa Major you find this nice spiral galaxy, which is fairly close to us. It shows lots of interesting HII regions.

Below: Observing from downtown Stockholm can be challenging, but gives also new opportunities. Here we see the young moon just over the well known landmark, the DN Newspaper building,, in central Stockholm.

Below: Dramatic Prominences - The big Solar prominences of June 17, 2017. Photographed with a small 60 mm solar H-alpha telescope.

Venus and the Pleiades: In April 2020, Venus made a nice visit to the Pleiades. One could follow the transit for several days. This exposure is from April 04, 2020.

Comet 21P: Comet 21P/Giacobini-Zinner on September 15/16 2018. It passed just south of the open clusters Messier 35 and NGC 2158 in Gemini.

Below: Magic Evening - The passing Swan created a Light Winged Golden Bird out of the reflected crescent moon - May 9, 2016

Set of Four: An almost classical set of prominences on Sep 9th, 2018. The development of the eruptions were interesting to follow. They looked like textbook examples.

The Sun in H-alpha: A very prominent prominence shows up at the suns limb on June 25, 2017.

The Sun in H-alpha: Active Region AR 2665. A nice prominence is visible at the limb. Taken at July 15, 2017 with a 60mm Solar telescope.

Below: On January 2019 there was a magnificent Lunar Eclipse visible in the early morning hours. In Stockholm it had its maximum around UT 05:12.

Active Sun: Active region AR2665 and some very nice prominences on July 8th, 2017, on the eastern limb of the sun.

Majestic Universe: The Cirrus Nebula in eastern Cygnus has an incredible amount of interesting veils and structures. The old supernova remnant is dominated by the red colour of hydrogen clouds, and the teal colour of oxygen features in the gaseous clouds.

Magnificent Sky: The Milky Way above. Looking at the open sky from a dark location is a wonderful experience. This image is from Fårö/Gotland and taken together with Marie and Michael Bergström.

Incredible Universe: The North America Nebula and Pelican Nebula in northern Cygnus. SHO Hubble palette colours.

Galaxies for Fun Astronomical CCD photos on peculiar galaxies and other astronomical stuff.

www.galaxies.se - by Ivar Hamberg