A Rare and Gorgeous Wolf-Rayet Bubble
Wind-blown Wolf-Rayet bubbles are among the most rare, intriguing and tantalising objects to observe. And NGC 3199’s gorgeous glowing cosmic bubble is even more rare, being one of only a handful of known X-ray-emitting Wolf-Rayet bubbles.
Pyxis, the Instrument that Changed the World
Small, faint and seemingly insignificant, the few faint stars that make up Pyxis, the mariner’s compass, symbolize a truly historic instrument that changed the world and holds so much meaning and significance for many different reasons.
Phoenix, Beautiful Firebird
If ever there is a place to see the colours of the mythical Phoenix – the beautiful firebird that lived in the Arabian desert and whose plumage was the colours of fire – it is the Kalahari at sunset.
A Quasar and a Stromatolite Fossil
Last night I observed quasar 3C 273 which lies 2.4 billion light-years away. Recently I found a 2.4 billion year old stromatolite fossil… the first evidence of life on Earth. It is impossible to fathom the distance from us humans in both light and evolution…
A Star Named Melville
Everyone has heard of Sigma Octantis, our southern pole star. But how many of us have ever heard of a star named Melville that lies even closer to the south celestial pole?
Centaurus A, Fourcade-Figueroa Shred, NGC 5237
This extraordinary trio of objects are the result of a galaxy shredding encounter… a violent encounter between an elliptical galaxy and a smaller companion spiral galaxy that took place some 500 million years ago.
Hogg Catalogue of Open Clusters (1965)
The twenty two Hogg open clusters offer an unusually rich observing project – not because the clusters themselves are rich – indeed, many of them are notably obscure – but because they all lie in exceptionally lush and beautiful star fields, with many of them juxtaposed with lovely NGC and Trumpler clusters.
Ara, A Southern Delight
Ara may be small and it may not compete well with its magnificent neighbours, Scorpius and Sagittarius, when it comes to objects big and bright and abundant… but it really is an astronomer’s delight, for it offers something special for everyone.