Jerome Hollon
The Needle Galaxy - Deceptively Small The Needle Galaxy is really cool, it’s the brightest, edge on galaxy that we can see from earth, thanks in part to its high density of globular clusters. It’s actually brighter than the Andromeda Galaxy, though considerably smaller from our perspective. But our perspective doesn’t reflect reality, it’s actually bigger than the Milky Way…
Why I Blog and Why You Read Blogging is a lot of work, you can tell by how few updates there are to this site, and how many of my images come along with the body text “Nothing here yet, enjoy the pretty pictures.” AI promises to make everything easy. I can use AI to write a blurb about a photo, or a blog entry in a few seconds and upload it here in no time. No sweat equity on my part,…
The Crab Nebula - Light Show from the Tenth Century What happens when you mix a supernova from a star so massive to decay into a neutron star, and nearly a thousand years? You get the stunning image I’ve captured above. The Crab Nebula was a supernova from 1054 AD, it was so spectacular that it was noticed by not just one society, but many, the Chinese, Japanese, Arab and Mayan astronomers…
Cave Nebula Not much to see here yet, enjoy the pretty pictures.
Cocoon Nebula - The Star Chrysalis Not much to see here yet, enjoy the pretty pictures. Especially the “elephant trunks” that are star forming regions.
Heaphone Nebula - 100 Million Times Dimmer than Pluto The headphone nebula is an exceedingly rare nebula to have a photo of. It was only discovered recently, and by accident. It was discovered in 1980 while examining photographic plates looking for faint emissions nebula. This nebula has a surface brightness of 17.1 magnitude, to put that in context, the brightest star in the night sky is a mag 1…
Cigar Galaxy - A Stellar Nursery The Cigar Galaxy is a unique starburst type galaxy. Even though it doesn’t look that big in this photo, it is roughly the same size as the milkyway galaxy, both around 40k lightyears across. The Cigar Galaxy only look so small because it’s somewhere between 11.4 and 12.4 million lightyears away. That’s pretty damn far. The Cigar galaxy is also a…
Bubble Nebula Nothing to see here yet, enjoy the pretty pictures.
Crystal Ball Nebula Nothing to see here yet, enjoy the pretty pictures.
Crescent Nebula Nothing to see here yet, enjoy the pretty pictures
M27 The Dumbbell Nebula - Beauty From A Dead Star This is the Dumbbell Nebula, also known as the Apple Core Nebula. It’s a planetary nebula that’s not too far from us. Normally planetary nebula are extremely difficult targets to capture because they’re tiny, but the Dumbbell Nebula is really close to us, only around 1,360 lightyears away. This one you can actually see with just…
M3 Globular Cluster - A Wandering Starburst This is one of my favorite objects it image each year as it goes by. M3 is second only to the double cluster (caldwell 14) in my opinion. M3 is visible during spring and early summer, and marks the start of galaxy season as the earth rotates away from the galactic core. Our night views will soon be staring into the deep abyss of space. The only nebula…
NGC 660 A Unique Galaxy Galaxy season is in full swing and I’m making full use of my new telescope, the EdgeHD 11. This is a galaxy I’ve dreamt of imaging for years but have never had the equipment to do so. See the problem with this galaxy, and you can probably tell from the slightly blurry image, is that the galaxy is so far away and much smaller than most galaxies. To put it in…
NGC 6949: Fireworks in the Sky - The Fireworks Galaxy Nothing here yet, just enjoy the image
Pinwheel Galaxy with Supernova 2023ixf I’m posting this image a little bit out of chronological order, but only because I’m super excited about it. It’s the first image from my new telescope, my partner bought me a Celestron EdgeHD 11 out of the blue because I was super excited about observing the supernova. I don’t know what I did to deserve him, but fellas, if your fella…
Orion Nebula Not everyone spends their Christmas editing a photo of Orion’s Nebula (m42) but I do! This is one of the most well known nebulas and probably the most photographed. It’s M42, or Orion’s Nebula. It’s one of the brightest nebula in the night sky and easily the most colorful with natural vision. You can find it in the Orion constellation just below the belt if you…
A Nebula With Heart, the Heart Nebula Nothing here yet, enjoy the pretty pictures. Also, check out this image with all the stars removed, it’s pretty dramatic:
Pacman Nebula in Cassiopeia This is a very faint emissions nebula in the constellation of Cassiopeia. It’s so faint that it’s a really difficult object to capture unless you have a really good guiding and dark enough skies to be friendly with long exposures. I was lucky to be able to capture this on a near moonless night, so the skies were dark. I tested out using ten minute exposures…
Elephant’s Trunk Nebula in Cepheus This mesmerizing image showcases Elephant’s Trunk Nebula (IC 1396), a diffuse emission nebula located in the constellation Cepheus, about 2,400 light-years away from Earth. IC 1396 is a massive and complex object, with a size of about 3 degrees across (equivalent to 10 full moons) and it is composed of a mix of gas and dust. The nebula is illuminated…
NGC 7822 in Cepheus This captivating image showcases NGC 7822, a star-forming region located in the constellation Cepheus, about 3,000 light-years away from Earth. NGC 7822 spans an area of about 40 light-years across and it is illuminated by the light of several young, massive stars. The region is composed of a mix of gas and dust, which is being compressed and ionized by the intense radiation…
M45 in Taurus This image captures the beauty of M45, also known as the Pleiades. M45 is an open star cluster located in the constellation Taurus, about 440 light-years away from Earth. The cluster contains around 1,000 stars, although only a few dozen are visible to the naked eye. The brightest stars in the cluster are blue-white, and they are among the youngest and hottest stars known. M45 has a…
Cygnus Loop, 2 Panel Mosaic This is the Cygnus Loop (also known as the Veil Nebula), first discovered by the English astronomer William Herschel in 1784. It is a supernova remnant located in the constellation Cygnus, about 1,470 light-years away from us. The nebula spans approximately 3 degrees across, which corresponds to a physical size of about 110 light-years. The Cygnus Loop is the result of…
Eagle Nebula in Serpens This is my own capture of the open cluster and emissions nebula called the Eagle Nebula. We’ve seen a lot of emissions nebula on my blog already, but not many open clusters. Open clusters are like the boring uncle of globular clusters. Where globular clusters are lots and lot of stars in a central location, open clusters are clusters of stars not significant in number…
LDN 889 in Gamma Cygni Nebula (IC1318) This nebula is sometimes called the butterfly nebula thanks to its dark dust band in the middle making it look like a butterfly. This is confusing because there is another nebula called the butterfly nebula, NGC 6302 (in the scorpius constellation) which is more commonly referred to as the Butterfly Nebula. Either way, this is a glorious nebula to image. When…
Emission Nebula NGC 6823 & Open Cluster NGC 6820 This is an interesting, little imaged area of space. This image has both an emissions nebula NGC 6823 and the open cluster NGC 6820. Another area that is similar is the Pleiades, it’s both an open cluster and nebula, the stars shining through a gas cloud. This is a little imaged area of space. Not sure why it’s not imaged more often, the…
Help Me Obi-Wan KenChatGPT, You’re My Only Hope Inside view of my joint. Incase you were wondering. After having two shoulder dislocations in three months, my doctors told me I needed to have a fun procedure called arthroscopy labral repair shoulder. During the surgery, they put you under, cut three holes in your shoulder, open up the joint and poke around until they find the reason for your…
Whirlpool Galaxy The Whirlpool Galaxy (M51) the first galaxy to be classified as a spiral galaxy, even before our own was classified as one. It’s a spiral galaxy interacting with its companion galaxy. The M designation means that it was cataloged by Charles Messier a famed comet hunter of the 1700s. His catalog was of “uninteresting” nebula and star clusters, uninteresting…
Monkey Head Nebula This is the Monkey Head Nebula. Supposedly it looks like a profile of a monkey head, but I can’t see it. Maybe you can! It’s an emission nebula in the Orion constellation, though it is not Orion’s Nebula, that’s M42, I’ve captured M42 twice, once in 2021 and in 2020 . The Orion constellation is a wealth of awesome nebula, Barnard’s Loop is one…
Tadpoles Nebula Had a clear weekend and got a chance to setup the telescope. This is the tadpole nebula, or IC 410. The tadpole nebula is nearby, only around 12,000 light-years away and is a very young stellar nursery. The region is undergoing intense star formation, but the oldest stars in it are just babies, being only around 4 million years old. In comparison, the last image I posted was a…
Bode’s Galaxy Group This is a galaxy cluster I can’t resist imaging every year. This is the M81 Group, which is named after the dominant galaxy in the center, M81, also known as Bode’s Galaxy. There’s also two other very visible galaxies here, the one on the left is M82, the Cigar Galaxy, and the one in the bottom right, the Garland Galaxy, or NGC 3077. But these…
NGC 2403 This is an unnamed galaxy designated NGC 2403. It’s physically the same size as the last galaxy I posted (the triangulum galaxy) however it’s significantly farther away. Whereas the triangulum is 2.7 million light-years away, NGC 2403 is 9.65 million light years away. This light was emitted well before humans ever evolved. This image isn’t super impressive, it’s…
Orion Nebula As part of my commitment to disclose AI authorship , this article was partially authored with AI This is one of my favorite nebulae to image. It’s rare to have such a bright nebula that you can image it in broadband, and it not just turn out all red. In fact, it’s so bright that it’s tricky to get it to appear right. Normally you want the longest exposure you can…
Triangulum Galaxy As part of my commitment to disclose AI authorship , this article was partially authored with AI This is M33, or the Triangulum Galaxy. It’s one of several galaxies present in the triangulum constellation, but it’s the most famous. It’s the furthest thing visible to the naked eye at dark skies, it should be visible even in suburbs as a kind of haze visible with…
Wizard Nebula As part of my commitment to disclose AI authorship , this article was partially authored with AI This is the Wizard Nebula, or NGC 7380. This is a narrowband image constructed in a modified Hubble palette. The wizard nebula is a nebula surrounding an open cluster that’s brimming with new stars. It’s somewhere between 7,000 and 8,000 light-years away and around 20…
Iris Nebula The Iris Nebula, or NGC 7023. This nebula is one of my favorites. It’s a reflection nebula, meaning that what we are seeing is actually light behind the nebula bouncing off dust in it and reaching our eyes. This dust is really interesting both scientifically and photographically. Scientifically we’re not actually sure what the dust is compromised of. The current best guess…
Andromeda Galaxy The one galaxy I can’t resist photographing every year! Or rather the three. It’s Andromeda! Along with is two dwarf galaxies that we can see here. I just have one thing to say about it: It looks like it headed right at us!
Eastern Veil Nebula This is the Eastern Veil Nebula. I also took pictures of this last year in October, this year’s turn out much better even with the full moon thanks to shooting this in narrowband. The Eastern Veil Nebula is also known as NGC 6992. It’s part of a recent (astronomically) supernova that happened about 10,000-20,000 years ago. The entire supernova remnant is called the…
Leo Triplets M65, M66 & NGC 3628 The Leo Triplets! Took these photos on March but didn’t think I had enough data to turn anything out with so I didn’t process them. Turns out there was enough there to make something decent. This is the Leo Triplet, a cluster of three galaxies in our cosmic neck of the woods. They’re all around 35 million light years away and are interacting with…
M106 & Its Companions in the Canes II Galaxy Group This is an interesting photo. The big galaxy in the middle is M106, but if you look to the right of the big galaxy you’ll see a bunch of smaller galaxies. These all belong to the same galaxy cluster, the Canes II Group, which M106 is the largest. M106 is very similar in size to Andromeda, and has been critical in helping astronomers…
Bodes Galaxy & Cigar Galaxy This is a two for one! The bottom galaxy is Bode’s galaxy, also known as M81. The top galaxy is the Cigar galaxy and is also known as M82! Bode’s galaxy is about 12 million light years away and is around 90,000 light years across. It was first discovered by astronomer Johann Elert Bode in 1774, hence it’s name. Maybe one of these days I’ll have a…
What is NINA? NINA, or Nighttime Imaging ‘n’ Astronomy is an “astrophotography imaging suite”. What that means in more common terms is that it’s a tool that astronomers and astrophotographers use to control their equipment to take photos. It can do everything from managing the rotation of an observatory, to controlling the illumination of a light panel for a…
NGC 2404 This is NGC 2404, an unnamed galaxy, part of the M81 group. It’s an intermediate spiral galaxy, that means it’s a cross between a barred spiral galaxy, a spiral galaxy with its core stretched out into a bar, and a spiral galaxy, one without any stretching of the core. This galaxy is really interesting because it’s pretty young, those pink dots you see aren’t a…
Jellyfish Nebula This is the jellyfish nebula (IC 443)! It a supernova remnant that’s about thirty thousand years old. One of the really neat things about this nebula is that it contains a neuron star, can’t really see it in this image but it’s there. This nebula is super faint so I couldn’t use a color camera on it, this image is a false color combination of the emissions…
Orion Nebula Not everyone spends their Christmas editing a photo of Orion’s Nebula (m42) but I do! This is one of the most well known nebulas and probably the most photographed. It’s M42, or Orion’s Nebula. It’s one of the brightest nebula in the night sky and easily the most colorful with natural vision. You can find it in the Orion constellation just below the belt if you…
Triangulum Galaxy This is the triangulum galaxy again! Had a nice clear night and collected some good images. The triangulum galaxy might look huge, but it’s a lot smaller than both the milky way and andromeda! The milky way has around a trillion stars, the triangulum galaxy only has around 40 billion. Enjoy this sight while you can! In about 4 billion years both the our milky way and…
Western Veil Nebula This is a Halloween special! This nebula is known as the Witch’s Broom Nebula! It’s also known as the western veil nebula and is part of the same supernova explosion that formed the eastern veil nebula I posted earlier this month. It’s also designated NGC6960.
Iris Nebula This is the Iris nebula, also known as NGC 7023 or Caldwell 4. This is a bright young star surrounded by a dust cloud that makes this beautiful image. You can’t see many stars around this before because there is a dark cloud of dust obscuring them all! If I was imaging from a darker site we might be able to see it, but alas, not from my backyard. The Iris Nebula isn’t too…
Triangulum Galaxy This is the triangulum galaxy (M33)! It’s one of the most distant objects you can see in the night sky if you have dark enough skies. It’s 2.73 million lightyears away! Even with it being the most distant object we can see with the naked eye, it’s still part of our galactic neighborhood called the “local group” We’re all nearby in the Virgio…
The Problem with Webex Teams While I was working at Hilton, they adopted webex as their de facto meeting and chat tool. Overall it’s a great tool, but one of our team’s workflows required messaging a lot of people all at once to request a review for something. Code reviews are a great example of this. When opening a pull request, our standard operating procedure was to @ every engineer…