This past week, our unusually stable weather pattern has continued in Wisconsin. What does that mean? Clear and crisp skies with no Moon! These are the conditions I hope for every month when the New Moon approaches.
With this development, I started the week by trying to image a faint, deep space object – The Ghost of Cassiopeia Nebula. Its an interesting nebula that has traits of both an emission nebula and a reflection nebula. The aid in both types of nebulosity is the star called Navi or Gamma Cassiopeiae. When you look for the constellation Cassiopeia, you look for the big “W” in the sky and Navi is the “middle” of the W. Here’s a video for some information on the constellation.
The intense heat from Navi illuminates the reflection nebula (the blue) and excites the gasses of the reflection nebula to generate its own heat (pink). What is amazing to me is that this intense influence from Navi is at a distance of 7 light years between the star and the nebulae… That’s a lot of heat! For more information, click here to read about it from ESA/Hubble.
Here’s my two our capture of the Ghost of Cassiopeia.
Next up, I always like to take some Milky Way images this time of year. One of my favorite “games” to play is to ask, “How am I standing in relationship to the galactic core?” Since the galactic core of our starry neighbor hood is perpendicular to us right now, I like to imagine myself walking into a room of people who are standing on the floor, but I’m standing on one of the walls. I know its a goofy image, but it reminds me that when it comes to space, up and down really don’t mean that much.
And for the grand finale, we had another night of aurora! Though the intensity of the storm was not as strong as May, the reds were piercing!
Michelle Thaller informed me that this strong of a red color is due to “The Forbidden Emission Line.” She explained that the air needs to be very thin and still as to not disturb oxygen atoms in upper atmosphere for a long time. When that rare combination of conditions exist, this deep red color is possible. Click here to learn a little more about The Forbidden Emission Lines from NASA’s webpage.
A week of wonder! A week of beauty! Sometimes in life, we just need to drink in these moments. Drink in some wonder in your life today. Happy Monday!
