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.

A Wolf-Rayet Bubble in the Carina Nebula

The Carina Nebula is, to my eye, the supreme nebula in our skies… it is preposterously beautiful… a billowing three-dimensional cloudscape… and in its northern end lies an enormous and gorgeous Wolf-Rayet bubble.

The Dark Horse

I’ve always loved observing dark nebulae; there is something very strange about seeing what isn’t there, until you discover how many variations of darkness the eye can discern and the shapes they reveal.

Horsehead Nebula

My first observation of the year was what has to be one of the most photographed but incredibly challenging blobs of darkness to observe visually – the Horsehead Nebula.

Three Beautiful Ghosts

Observing planetary nebulae is, in a word, awe-inspiring because one is actually seeing a star dying in the night sky, its shroud forming one of the most beautiful sights in the cosmos.

The Three Great Nebulae

One of the the most sublime experiences of living in the southern hemisphere is that a few languid slews of the telescope allow one to see all three of those mighty star-birth nebulae: the Great Orion Nebula… the Carina Nebula… the Tarantula Nebula.