May 5, 2022

M 51

Located in the constellation of Canes Venatici, M51 is one of the most famous spiral galaxies in the sky and together with its neighbour NGC5195, it is also a clear example of galaxy interaction...Read more 



Apr 26, 2022

Leo Triplet (revisited)

The Leo Triplet (also known as the M66 Group) is a well-known and beautiful group of galaxies located in the constellation Leo, at a distance of approximately 35 million light years. It is formed by the spiral galaxies M65 and M66 and by NGC 3628...Read more 



Apr 2, 2022

NGC 5907 and its stellar stream

NGC 5907 (also known as the Splinter Galaxy or Knife Edge Galaxy) is a spiral galaxy located about 50 million light-years from Earth in the northern constellation Draco. It is a member of the NGC 5866 group.

NGC5907 was long considered a prototype example of a relatively isolated warped spiral... Read more (updated 17/04/2022) 







Mar 11, 2022

Abell 31 (Sharpless 2-290): finished!

Abell 31 (Sh2 290) is a large, faint, ancient planetary nebula located in the constellation of Cancer. It is estimated to be about 2000 light-years away from us... Read more 



Feb 26, 2022

NGC 2359 Thor's Helmet starless

 Although I regularly use starless images  within my standard processing (to separate the image on its large scale and small scale components), I had not attempted until now to produce a final starless image (to improve the visual effect of the nebulosity)... Read more (updated 11/03/2022)  





Feb 16, 2022

A personal (re) view of IC410 and the tadpoles

Two years ago, I already imaged IC410 nebula. While I was reasonably satisfied with the monochrome  (Hydrogen alpha) image, I was not so with the colour image.

So this winter I made another try: This is a new "colour" image with Ha-OIII-OIII palette and RGB stars... Read more (updated Feb 22, 1022) 






Jan 20, 2022

NGC 2359 Thor's Helmet

NGC 2359, known as Thor's Helmet and also catalogued as Sharpless 2-298, is an emission nebula  of the Wolf -Rayet type.

Its central star has been classified as Wolf-Rayet type (a massive star in a pre-supernova stage) and has been catalogued as WR7... Read more