January 2022 Stargazing Photos

I got lucky this month. The atmospheric river that has been dumping on the Seattle area and clouding our skies was diverted for a couple of nights. It was so unexpected that I missed the first night. I wouldn’t have known it was happening if Quanda hadn’t seen the moon and told me about it but, when she did, it was too late to go out that night. I made sure to watch the weather closely the next day and, when it stayed clear, I went out for my first night of stargazing in months.

It was not a comfortable night of stargazing. I froze my butt off. My hands bothered me the most. I’ve ordered some heated gloves to help with this next time. Anyway, I only staid out for about an hour of actual stargazing. I had to take short exposure pictures that limited the clarity of some of them. This allowed me to see more objects before the cold chased me back inside. (Quanda decided to stay home and warm. I can’t say I blame her.)

Most of the celestial objects I viewed were in and around the constellation Orion. Orion is only visible in the winter. I want to view the winter objects while I can.

Nebulae

Here are three of the nebulae in Orion. There are a lot more but these are the only ones I had the time to photograph this time.

The Orion Nebula is the most spectacular nebula in the constellation and can actually be seen with the naked eye. It is the middle “star” in Orion’s sword. It looks like a big, fuzzy star or patch in the sky. The Orion Nebula is the first nebula ever photographed and has probably been photographed more than any other nebula.

The Orion Nebula (M42) is a diffuse nebula. It is one of the brightest nebulae in the night sky. It is 1,344 light-years away and is the closest region of massive star formation to Earth. This nebula is estimated to be 24 light-years across. It has a mass of about 2,000 times that of the Sun.

The Flame Nebula is an emission nebula that is near the eastern (leftmost) star in Orion’s belt. An emission nebula is a nebula formed of ionized gases that emit light of various wavelengths. Those wavelengths are not necessarily in the visible spectrum.

The bright star Alnitak, the easternmost star in the Belt of Orion, shines energetic ultraviolet light into the Flame and this 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. Additional dark gas and dust lies in front of the bright part of the nebula and this is what causes the dark network that appears in the center of the glowing gas.

My picture of this nebula would be much more dramatic if I had had the time to take a much longer exposure. It is also more dramatic when you can see the infrared and/or ultraviolet parts of the spectrum.

My picture of the Horsehead Nebula is the faintest one of all. In fact, some of you won’t see anything. (It might be easier to see if you make the picture bigger.) I only included it so that it can be compared with the next picture I get of the nebula that will have a longer exposure. Hopefully, it won’t take me too long to get the next picture.

The head is dark and in the center of the picture. The head is facing up and a little to the left. It is surrounded by a faint, red glow that “highlights” the head.

The Horsehead Nebula is a small dark nebula in the constellation located just to the south of Alnitak, the easternmost star of Orion's Belt, and is near the Flame Nebula. It appears within the southern region of the dense dust cloud known as Lynds 1630, along the edge of a much larger, active star-forming region.

The Horsehead Nebula is approximately 1,375 light-years from Earth.

Stars

Betelgeuse may appear to be just another red supergiant star but it is significant for two reasons. First, Betelgeuse is the hunter’s left shoulder in the Orion Constellation. Second, Betelgeuse is the star closest to us that is most likely to go nova any time now. Cosmically speaking “any time now” can mean anything from it has already gone nova but the light hasn’t reached us yet to it will happen 10,000 years from now. Be that as it may, everyone who is outside when it happens will look up at the sky at the same time and say, “What’s that!?!”

Betelgeuse is usually the tenth-brightest star in the night sky and, after Rigel, the second-brightest in the constellation of Orion. It is a distinctly reddish semiregular variable star.

Planets

This picture of Uranus is much like the one in my September 2021 post. I include this one because – if you compare the two – you will see that Uranus is bigger in the current picture. It shows that Uranus has gotten closer to the Earth over the past four months.

Here is a picture of the Half Moon. Again, I just included this picture so that you can compare my pictures of the phases of the moon. There is a full moon in the September post.

Star Clusters

NGC 1817 is an open cluster of stars in the constellation Taurus. It was discovered by English astronomer William Herschel in February 1784. With an apparent magnitude of 7.7 and spanning 9.3 arc minutes across the sky, it is separated from the NGC 1807 cluster by just 26 arc minutes. Indeed, the two may actually be parts of a single extended cluster.

Galaxies

NGC 2683 is a field spiral galaxy in the northern constellation of Lynx. It was nicknamed the "UFO Galaxy" by the Astronaut Memorial Planetarium and Observatory. It was discovered by the astronomer William Herschel on February 5, 1788. It is viewed nearly edge-on from Earth's location in space and is located about 30 million light-years away.