January 27, 2017
The Bubble Nebula, in the constellation Cassiopeia. The "bubble" in the Bubble Nebula is about 7 light years in diameter.
The bubble is created by stellar wind from a massive hot, young central star. Go to this LINK to see a Hubble Space Telescope image of the bubble.
At the upper right is the star cluster M52.
In the lower center, the bright red area of nebulosity is known as Dreyer's Object or NGC 7538.
Dreyer's Object is located about 9,100 light-years from Earth. It is home to the biggest yet
discovered protostar which is about 300 times the size of the Solar System. You can read more about
NGC 7538 HERE. It was discovered by John Louis Emil Dreyer, a Danish-Irish astronomer
who lived 1852-1926.
A tighter crop of the Bubble Nebula.
Five galaxies in the constellation Leo. At top is M95 and below that is M96. The top galaxy in the cluster at lower left is M105, the other two are NGC 3384 and NGC 3389. These and some other small galaxies are known as the M96 Group (also known as the Leo I Group). A few other small galaxies are visible in this image. I wasn't able to get many images to stack due to clouds. This is 34 one-minute exposures.
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