#helixnebula — Public Fediverse posts

Curious #CometaryKnots in the #HelixNebula
#Astronomy #Picture of the Day

https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap260804.html

#APOD #Nebula

A new image from NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope of a portion of the Helix Nebula highlights comet-like knots, fierce stellar winds, and layers of gas shed off by a dying star interacting with its surrounding environment. Webb’s image also shows the stark transition between the hottest gas to the coolest gas as the shell expands out from the central white dwarf.

Credit: NASA

via wonders-of-the-cosmos

#JWST
#HelixNebula

Webb Zooms into Helix Nebula https://www.nasa.gov/image-detail/stsci-01kcmamz8zsmrtr9kkd8y6emrj/?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=mastodon #JamesWebb #HelixNebula #NASA #SpacePhotography #Astrophysics

Hot new James Webb Space Telescope image just dropped. Like, *really* hot.

This is just a tiny portion of the #HelixNebula. It is the end result of a life stage of #stars with about the mass of the Sun. Like people, stars are born, live and die. The Helix Nebula represents old age for Sun-like stars, after the exhaust their nuclear fuel. The stars shed their outer layers into the surrounding space and contract to become white dwarfs, a kind of shell or husk of their former selves.

What you're seeing here are thousands of so-called 'cometary knots', each about the size of our Solar System. They're only 'cometary' in appearance, forming tails behind them. Note that they all point in a common direction, toward the white dwarf star that is outside the frame toward the top. The knots are clumps of material rich in molecules, shed by the dying star before it entered its current phase. Now they are blasted by the intense radiation coming from that star, which shapes their appearance.

As the European Space Agency puts it: "Its intense radiation lights up the surrounding gas, creating a rainbow of features: hot ionized gas closest to the white dwarf, cooler molecular hydrogen farther out, and protective pockets where more complex molecules can begin to form within dust clouds. This interaction is vital, as it’s the raw material from which new planets may one day form in other star systems."

Read more about this image on: https://esawebb.org/news/weic2601/

#Astronomy

A Narrowband Helix https://photo.m-j-s.net/blog/2025/11/a-narrowband-helix/

NGC 7293 - Helix Nebula in Aquarius - SHORGB v1

Some old narrowband data of the Helix was sitting for quite a while on my hard disk. Recently I started to adopt the “Foraxx” palette described in The Coldest Nights blog and used this technique with the...

#Aquarius #astrofotografie #astronomie #astronomy #astrophotography #EN #EyeOfGod #EyeOfSauron #hakos #HelixNebula #ias #NGC7293 #photoblog #remote

A #Helix #Nebula #DeepField
#Astronomy #Picture of the Day

https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap250729.html

#APOD #HelixNebula

Last night was the last night of clear weather for a week or so for us, so, despite the full moon, we popped the Dwarves up on the roof.

First up let's look at what I got the #DwarfII to do. I thought I'd revisit my old favourite, #C63 the #HelixNebula . What I got surprised me greatly.

Here is the same scene - about a fortnight apart - one shot on the #Dwarf3 and the other on the DwarfII. In both cases there is about 7 hours of exposure, at gain 80, and both are using a dualband #OIII / #HII filter.

Both were post processed in the #StellarStudio and finished in #Snapseed .

I am utterly amazed at just how good the Dwarf2 stands up. No, it is not as good as the Dwarf3, but it is still a solid image, and one I am very pleased with.

#Astronomy #astrophotography #Astrodon #SmartTelescope #BackYardAstronomy

Over the last three nights - a break in the weather for us here in #Boorloo ( #PerthWA ) - I've been targeting the same target after midnight and through to astronomical twilight. It is another target that is familiar to me - #C63 or #HelixNebula sometimes known as the Eye of Sauron Nebula or the Eye of God Nebula.

This is the largest planetary nebula visible to us, only about 200 parsecs away, and is about 2.8 light years across, making it about 22 arcminutes across for the main body, and is about 6500 years old.

So back to the making of this image. Each night I got about five hours of shooting in with my #Dwarf3 , for about fifteen hours total. I had to ditch a bunch of frames as they had dodgy data (atmospheric distortions, musktrails, and, in one case, a passing jet), which brought me down to thirteen hours and thirty-six minutes (816x60s@80). These I restacked using the "Megastack" function of the #DwarfLab app (about 3 hours - executed entirely within the telescope), and then passed the result to the #StellarStudio part of the app (running in the cloud) to optimize the FITS file and run a star removal.

I then exported a PNG of each version, and started post-processing. This consisted of passing the starless image into #Snapseed and boosting the saturation, darkening shadows and so on. Then I took the optimized version and took the shadows to maximum darkness, and reduced the overall brightness somewhat, leaving me with a reduced star version, with almost no nebula visible. Lastly, in Snapseed again, I used the double exposure tool to stack the two parts together.

And here is the result.

#Astronomy #Astrodon #Astrophotography #C63 #HelixNebula

Accretion onto WD 2226−210, the central star of the #HelixNebula: https://arxiv.org/abs/2412.07863 -> X-ray Signal Points to Destroyed Planet, Chandra Finds: https://chandra.cfa.harvard.edu/press/25_releases/press_030425.html and https://www.nasa.gov/image-article/x-ray-signal-points-to-destroyed-planet-chandra-finds/

X-ray Clues Reveal Destroyed Planet https://www.nasa.gov/image-article/x-ray-clues-reveal-destroyed-planet/ #NASA #ChandraXRayObservatory #HelixNebula #WhiteDwarfs

Accretion onto WD 2226−210, the central star of the #HelixNebula: https://arxiv.org/abs/2412.07863 -> X-ray Signal Points to Destroyed Planet, Chandra Finds: https://chandra.cfa.harvard.edu/press/25_releases/press_030425.html and https://www.nasa.gov/image-article/x-ray-signal-points-to-destroyed-planet-chandra-finds/

X-ray Signal Points to Destroyed Planet, Chandra Finds https://www.nasa.gov/image-article/x-ray-signal-points-to-destroyed-planet-chandra-finds/ #NASA #ChandraXRayObservatory #HelixNebula #HubbleSpaceTelescope #MarshallAstrophysics #MarshallSpaceFlightCenter #Nebulae #PlanetaryNebulae #Stars #TheUniverse #WhiteDwarfs

#NGC7293: The #HelixNebula
#Astronomy #Picture of the Day

https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap241024.html

#APOD #Nebula

Failed attempt at the Helix Nebula.
It was low on the horizon; my data was atrocious.
I still learned many things trying to process it.
#telescope #telescopes #celestron #celestrontelescope #celestronnexstar #nexstarevolution #nexstarevolution6 #canon #canoneosr7 #eosr7 #astro #astrophoto #astrophotos #astrophotography #astrophotographer #spacephotography #astronomy #spaceexploration #nasa #universe #space #deepsky #deepspace #nebula #helix #helixnebula #ngc #ngc7293 #c63 #caldwell #caldwell63

NASA's Helix Nebula sound recording: a haunting 1-minute scream that will leave you breathless. Gases vibrating in space create an eerie wail, like a cosmic entity shrieking in the darkness. Listen, but beware: the horror is out of this world!

#sound #space #universe #helixnebula #horrorsound #nasa #universesound #chilling #scream #goosebumps #sciences #electromagneticwave #spacesound

Last night we had an unexpected gap in the clouds after coming home from the drive-in. (Wolverine and Deadpool - good solid ultraviolent fun. Hugh Jackman is having a ball.)

So I targetted the Helix Nebula - NGC7293. I was aiming for 500 subs, but the clouds rolled in and I only got 380.

Still, a pretty planetary nebula, and one that is uncommonly large as far as these object go, spanning 20-odd arc-minutes.

DwarfII, 380x15s@80, Dwarf UHC filter, post processed in Snapseed and Google Photos. Astrometry image by astrometry.net .

Center (RA, Dec): (337.561, -20.965)
Center (RA, hms): 22h 30m 14.739s
Center (Dec, dms): -20° 57' 54.016"
Size: 2.42 x 1.36 deg
Radius: 1.385 deg
Pixel scale: 2.97 arcsec/pixel

#astronomy #astrophotography #dwarfII #Snapseed #GooglePhotos #nebula #HelixNebula #NGC7293 #C63 #Movie #deadpool3wolverine

Eye of God VI by Steve Berkly

The “ Eye of God” or The Helix Nebula (NGC 7293) is a planetary nebula located in the constellation Aquarius, at about 650 light years from the Earth.

The blue-green glow in the centre of the Helix comes from oxygen atoms shining under effects of the intense ultraviolet radiation of the 120 000 degree Celsius central star and the hot gas.

https://www.flickr.com/photos/steveberkley/53180611196/in/photostream/

@photography
#astrophotography
#flickr
#HelixNebula

Evidence for the Disruption of a #PlanetarySystem During the Formation of the #HelixNebula: https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.3847/1538-3881/ac9d90 -> #SOFIA Helps Reveal a Destroyed Planetary System: https://newsroom.usra.edu/sofia-helps-reveal-a-destroyed-planetary-system/

#NGC7293: The #HelixNebula
#Astronomy #Picture of the Day

https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap211014.html

#APOD #Nebula

The #HelixNebula in #Hydrogen and #Oxygen
#Astronomy #Picture of the Day

https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap190213.html

#APOD