Alex Hawkinsonさんのイラストまとめ

Intergalactic Dating

The galaxies M81 and M82 are two of my favorite targets in our night sky. Each epic in its own right, this pair of galaxies is interacting with each other on cosmic scale 12 million light years from Earth.

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A shockwave expanding through space at 600 miles per second. At last, this is my 2 panel mosaic of the full Spaghetti Nebula. This target has a special place in my heart not just because of its subtle beauty.

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Let’s kick 2023 off right! This is the best image I’ve captured so far of the galaxy M81, the largest member of a grouping of 34 galaxies roughly 12 million lightyears from Earth. It is home to 250 billion stars orbiting a black hole with a mass of 70 million suns at its core. 👇

Dark filaments of primordial material stand out against the brilliant radiation of this intense star forming region in the core of the Rosette nebula. You can almost feel the power of the massive stars just out of frame...👇

This is both one of my more ambitious and also one of my favorite astrophotos that I’ve ever taken. A 3 panel mosaic looking deep into the core of the Heart Nebula. 👇

Who’s hiding now?

This is the “Hidden Galaxy”. A large, beautiful spiral galaxy that, from our vantage point on Earth, sits behind so much interstellar dust that it is difficult to see. I went after it with my CDK17 telescope and am excited to share the result.

I tried to get in a little closer on Cygnus X-1, the closest known black hole to Earth. It is siphoning material from a companion star generating a pair of jets shooting out of its poles at near the speed of light. The resulting shockwave creates the arc seen in my image.

2 panel deep mosaic of the Fish Head, a vibrant emission nebula partially obscured by dark interstellar dust clouds in the foreground. 6k ly from Earth, we often overlook this area of the Perseus arm of the Milky Way.

I hope you like it and have a great day!

The Black Hole next door.

I widened my recent shot surrounding the Tulip Nebula to try to capture the glowing blue shockwave created by the relativistic jet of Cygnus X-1, the nearest black hole to Earth. You can see the shockwave near the center of my image. Wow!

The Dot in the Question Mark. Sometimes called the Little Rosette nebula, it's the "dot" in the Question Mark nebula in Cepheus, and is rarely imaged in detail. 7,500 lightyears away in a different arm of our galaxy, here for your viewing pleasure! 🍻