This Is The (Great) Orion Nebula, Also Known As M42, It's A Giant Cloud Of Interstellar Dust And Gas.

This is the Crescent nebula it is located in the constellation Cygnus. This nebula is the result of the center star first becoming a red supergiant and ejecting some of its outer layers of gas in space, that gas cloud was then shaped into a bubble by the stellar winds emitted by the central star when it later turned into a Wolf–Rayet star.

The resulting gas bubble is heated and ionised by both the UV rays edited by the start and the stellar winds causing it to glow. Wolf-Rayet stars are the final step of some of the most massive stars before they explode into supernovas. In the case of the crescent nebula, the central star is expected to go supernova within the next few hundred thousand years (We probably still have quite a bit of time left before we observe that).

When a star goes supernova, some of the matter that composed the star is blasted off into space at extremely high velocities (up to 10% of the speed of light). This matter will then slowly (few hundred to a few tens of thousand of years) slow-down and cool-down to for me vast clouds of interstellar dust and gas. This second photo is a part of such a gas cloud, the veil nebula (the center of the western veil, also known as C34). In short, this is the photo of what's left of the corpse of a star that exploded about 10 to 20 thousand years ago.

Just got a week of clear weather will I had access to my telescope, managed to get a good amount of data, treatment will have to wait though (I have some exams in 2 weeks). In the meantime, here's a quick test I did with the horse head nebula.

This is a SHH composition (there is nearly no OIII emission in this nebula and I did bother imaging in this wavelength).

Finished working on my photo of the hors head.

Technically speaking the Horse Head is only the dark nebula, is bright hydrogen cloud behind it is known as IC434 and the second nebula (bottom left) is the flame nebula. The bright star in the center left is Zeta Orionis also known as Alnitak one of the three stars of Orion's Belt. IC434 primary ionisation source is the multiple star system Sigma Orionis (a bit above the frame), the hydrogen cloud being mostly ionise by the UV coming from those blue giant stars. The streaks visible in the nebulosity are mostly likely due to magnetic field within.

The Flame nebula's ionisation source is hidden behind it's dust cloud and is most likely part of a star cluster that Is only reviled using IR and X-ray imaging.

This photo appears mostly blue/teal wear-as most photos of this nebula are red(ish) this is because this nebula emits most of it's light in the H-alpha (656 nm) and S-II (around 672 nm) wavelength both of which are red, so in classic RGB images the nebula appears red. Initially I thought of doing an SHO image (were red is SII emission, green is H-alpha and blue is OIII) but this nebula lacks OIII emission (around 500 nm), so instead a used a modified SHH palette More precisely, I used SII for the red, a combination of both Ha and SII (0.8Ha + 0.2SII) for green and Ha for blue. The stars were taken separately in RGB and added back to the SHH image.

(Image taken using a CarbonStar 150/600 newtonian telescope with a 0.95 coma corrector, ZWO ASI294 monochrome camera and Baader 6.5nm SHO filter. 5x120s image for each colour filter (RGB), 22x300s for the Ha filter and 32x300s for the SII filter, total imaging time 5h, stacking and processing done in PixInsight.)

A photo of the comet 12P ponce-brook, taken from my bedroom window. In the middle ages, comets were regarded as omens of great change, generally bad ones. It's only after the discovery of their periodic return (during the 15's to 16's hundred) and later discovery of their nature (big balls of mostly ice and some rocks orbiting the sun) that comets stoped to be feared. Despite that, I still find them to be awe-inspiring.

For those interested, this comet is currently visible with a good pair of binoculars or a telescope if you look in the Andromeda constellation (more information on positions and visibility: https://theskylive.com/12p-info) I would have taken more pictures or a better one if the clouds had not been consistently thwarting any attempts at observation in the last week and a half.

I've worked in a chemistry lab, they had a room with all the analysis and purification equipment. There was a constant noise due to the various pumps (vacuum, solvent, ...) and valves. After just a few days working there I could telle exactly with machin was doing what task and at what point it was in that process just based upon the noise they made.

This is M51, also known as the Whirlpool Galaxy it is a pair a galaxy currently interacting together. If you look at the two arms of the spiral, you will see that the one on the left is somewhat deformed (near the other galaxy) this is due to the gravitational interaction between the two galaxies. Those interaction are also the reason why the left galaxy (NGC 5195) is this irregular. Some of the models have proposed that both galaxies have passed through each other at some point in the past. In the future both galaxie will slowly fuse together, but this will take at least a few hundred million years. Multiple other interacting galaxies also exist, such as the butterfly galaxies or the antenna galaxies.

This photo was supposed to be a test of my new equatorial mount but the result was WAY BETTER than expected so here you go (the post-treatment of the photos is not the best ever but I had to work with a limited amount a data). I will probably post more photos this summer since I now have access to better skys and a better mount than in Munich (If the weather complies).

can I read posts on the internet lightning speed ? yes.

can I read a scientific publication quickly ? also yes !!!

now, can I read a normal book at a somewhat regular speed ? no, I have to re-read the previous page, hell the previous chapter because I forgot what the conversation between the character was about !

I was able to see and take pictures of the comet C2023/A3 (Tsuchinshan-ATLAS) ! This comet will be visible in the night sky probably for the next week or two, it's currently visible both with a pair of binoculars and with the naked eye. Since it's visible very early after sunset, it's a bit difficult to spot for now, but in the coming days it's will gradually be visible later in the night and thus easier to observe.

This comet is one of the brightest in the last few years so it should be quite easy to observe.

I hope you all get a chance to see it, it's magnificent

Photos of the two major components of the veil nebula, the first one is the eastern veil aka C33 and the second one (the one with the star in the middle) the western veil aka C34. Those are part of a supernova remnant (left over gas and dust from a supernova), their colour are due mainly to two gases present inside. The blue/green colour comes mostly from oxygen (as OIII emission around 500nm by doubly ionised oxygen) and a little bit from hydrogen (as H beta emission at 486nm) where as the red comes nearly completely from hydrogen (as H alpha emission at 656nm).

The first photo is about 2.5 hours of exposure (30x3 min for RGB + 10x5 min for H alpha) and the second one about 3 hours (36x3 min for RGB + 16x5 min for H alpha).

The additional photos taken in hydrogen alpha are added to the normal RGB photos to intensify the colour and visibility of the hydrogen gas (it doesn't show well enough with standard RGB in part due to the lower amount of light it emits an in part due to the sensor's response itself) Here is a version of C33 (eastern veil) with the stars removed as my friends were very impressed by it, hope you like it too.

Ok, so I finished the processing of my new photo of the Flaming Star Nebula (IC 405)

Image taken in SII and Ha with a few RGB images to have the correct star colours. This is technically an SHH combination image but with a narrowband normalisation and a lot of curve modifications (with and without colour masks) to get colours/contrast that I liked. I already had taken a photo of this nebula, but it was using mostly RGB data with a bit of Ha (and a lot less integration time). It did show the dust reflection way better, but I like the contrast we can see inside the nebula's gas on this one. Thanks to @shaythempronouns for suggesting the use of an SII filter to image this nebula. Starless version :

(Image taken using a CarbonStar 150/600 newtonian telescope with a 0.95 coma corrector, ZWO ASI294 monochrome camera ZWO LRGB filters and Baader 6.5nm narrowband filter. 5x120s image for each colour filter (RGB), 29x300s for the Ha filter and 33x300s for the SII filter, total imaging time 6h 35min, stacking and processing done in PixInsight. Photo taken mid-January)