Astronomy Photography - Blog Posts

The Bedtime Cosmos Gossiper

An AI Thriller-Comedy Collaboration between Bard and Hugging Face, with some interference from a biological entity.

To capitalize on the hype surrounding an escalating space race, social media lords in an alternate timeline decided to expand the range of their location tags to outer space, where commercial outposts and interplanetary tourism shuttles were starting to emerge. They were too happy to turn the science fiction novels they adored into reality, except that they had no idea, no idea at all, how much stranger than fiction reality was.

Jimena was just another kid pajamas influencer on video channels and Twitter until one fateful day, she received a mysterious direct message from none other than the Sun itself! The tag of the account confirmed its location, where no conceivable organism could possibly stay. Little did Jimena know that the Sun was sentient and had been using social media as a secret platform for celestial bodies to share their private interests, thoughts and lives with each other.

Was it a technical error or a prank? Could it be passed off as one? Nobody was taking chances. The message from the Sun contained some juicy celestial secrets - but before Jimena could even process what she had read, she started getting messages from all sorts of astronomical entities demanding she delete her knowledge of their dirty laundry. But Jimena wasn't going down without a fight; she knew that this was the biggest opportunity for her career and refused to back down.

As she began designing pajamas videos hinting at the gossip-worthy content, she quickly became a target for all sorts of interstellar enemies - including asteroid belts, black holes, supernovae, and even a vengeful solar wind. With the entire cosmos against her, Jimena realized she would have to rely on her quick wit and sharp tongue if she wanted to survive long enough to see her big breakthrough.

Despite the odds stacked against her, Jimena managed to outsmart the forces aligned against her by tapping into a vast collection of memes, GIFs, and viral content. For a start, she created and showed to the belts, for the purpose of deterrence, memes comparing different asteroid belts, which could turn them into fashion trends among teenagers. When those teens grew up, they might become billionaire investors on asteroid mining companies, resulting in the destruction of the belts due to over exploitation. Jimena also pulled out algorithms pushing endless recommendations of video shorts of clumsy comets and astronauts that were so funny and entertaining that they became all-sucking black holes to the black holes, who could not resist looking at them. While they were hooked, she of course escaped their gravitational pull. To generate even more distraction, she spammed the internet highway with space probe-facilitated, 24/7 livestreams of her interstellar enemies' celestial crushes. The physically restless supernovae might be harder to subdue but our girl proved there was nothing a series of rainbow flash selfie challenges could not solve.

Ready?

Get set.

Smileyous smileyosion!

Her followers went wild as they watched her take down asteroid belts, fend off black holes and more, all while wearing her signature footie pajamas.

Enraged at the incompetency of its fad-chasing allies, the solar wind finally took action. It began to send an unprecedentedly tremendous explosion of energy toward Jimena, overwhelming Earth's magnetosphere and nearly causing her to be vaporized. She knew she had to do something, but what? Suddenly, Jimena had an idea. She reached into her pocket, opened up Twitter again and started typing.

"Attention, solar wind!" she DMed. "My stories about you were just beginning. I'm a genius at reading between the lines and projecting story developments. So I know your other secrets. I know about the time you accidentally blew up a planet. I know about the time you had an even more torrid affair with a black hole. And I know about the time you got drunk and crashed into a star. If you don't back off, I'm going to go live and tell everyone."

And so even the solar wind stopped in its tracks. Sometimes, the best way to fight back is with humor and truth, she chuckled carelessly to herself.

Jimena emerged victorious and started to return to making pajamas videos. But the eerie ease with which she returned to her original work, free of any more cosmic interference, also started to feel wrong. Why were her many gigantic and mega-powerful enemies so readily intimidated and distracted? She reflected on the private message she first came across and the content she eventually made or promoted in self-defense. Those interstellar entities led long but also lonely lives, barely able to have peaceful physical contact with anyone. Was it really right to prey on their secrets? Maybe, she thought, there might be a better use of her talents than spreading gossip and creating controversy.

Jimena decided to reach out to the celestial bodies she had gossiped about and apologized for her actions. The celestial bodies were surprised and grateful for Jimena's apology. They told her that they had been isolated for a long time yet fearful of revealing their sentience to the fast-learning earthlings and that they were glad to have someone to talk to. Jimena and the celestial bodies became friends, and they often talked to each other about their lives. By and by, Jimena learned a lot about the universe, and she came to appreciate the beauty of the cosmos. This beauty should be woven into her craft, not through the superficially science-imitating kitsch flooding the market, but through actions which kindness the beauty evokes feelings of.

With renewed determination, she pressed record on her camera and spoke directly to her audience. “You guys,” she said softly, “I hope this will be the start of our journey together towards a brighter future.” A smile brightened her face as she signed off, ready to embark on this new chapter in her digital legacy.

As for her fans? Many left disappointed that she was not stirring up drama anymore. Some stayed, drawn to her updated style and approachable personality. Others found fresh voices online better suited to their interests, or simply moved on to newer forms of digital escapism. But no matter what the outcome, Jimena remained resolute in her mission to better herself and the world, one post at a time.

Inspired by her example, countless young individuals followed suit, focusing on artistry rather than angst, building connections versus clickbait.

One day, years later, Jimena stepped backstage following a successful speech discussing digital ethics. Approached by a younger creator sharing similar ideals, she hugged the girl warmly, memories flooding back to her. “Remember, little sister,” she whispered, choking back tears of pride mixed with gratitude, “the whole universe is silently crying out for niceness.”

Space images embedded with the permission of NASA and ESA under their standard conditions. Sources (from top to bottom): NASA, NASA, ESA.

Centaurus A

NASA's Stratospheric Observatory for Infrared Astronomy (SOFIA) observed magnetic fields shown in this composite image of Centaurus A. They're shown as streamlines over an image of the galaxy taken at visible and submillimeter wavelengths by the European Southern Observatory and Atacama Pathfinder Experiment (orange), X-ray wavelengths from NASA's Chandra X-Ray observatory (blue) and infrared from NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope (dark red).

Credits: Optical: European Southern Observatory (ESO) Wide Field Imager; Submillimeter: Max Planck Institute for Radio Astronomy/ESO/Atacama Pathfinder Experiment (APEX)/A.Weiss et al.; X-ray and Infrared: NASA/Chandra/R. Kraft; JPL-Caltech/J. Keene; SOFIA/L. Proudfit

it’s been a little over two years since i took a picture of ursa major while flying. it was a surreal experience and i lowkey want to travel again just so i can see that :)

really regret not getting my phone reflection out of it so if anyone has any tips to remove it i’d love to hear them!

We went to the local observatory tonight but when we got there, there was a HUGE line of people. Whoops. It’s was still really pretty and we got to see an amazing view of the stars.

These are my attempts to take a picture of the sky with my phone but they didn’t turn out very well. I don’t even remember what I was trying to photograph. Next time, I’ll try to bring an actual camera.

I think the brightest one in the left picture might be Jupiter???? lol 🥲

Thor's Helmet taken by Chris DeCosta and Martin Pugh on February 28 2019

NGC 2359, also referred to as Thor's Helmet, is an emission nebula in the constellation Canis Major. At the heart of this nebula is a Wolf-Rayet star WR7, which is in this phase briefly before a supernova occurs.

The bubble appearance of this nebula is due to the strong stellar winds coming from WR7. These winds contribute to forming a complex structure, with a huge mass of ionized material. The high energy radiation coming from the star ionizes hydrogen to produce red light and doubly ionizes oxygen to produce blue light.

The gas absorbs and then reemits this light, leading to the name of "emission nebula".

Star Trails taken by Rob on February 24 2024

Star trails are photographs taken over long exposures, where the rotation of the Earth causes the stars to appear as arcs in the sky instead of points. The Earth rotates around its axis every 23 hours and 56 minutes.

Typically, star trails are focused on Polaris in the northern hemisphere, but I found this photo unique because it opted for a different composition. It also really highlights how dense the sky is with stars.

It begs the question, why isn't the sky infinitely bright with infinite stars? This is actually the observation that helped cosmologists find theories for the age of the universe. For a young universe, not enough time has passed for the light from incredibly distant stars to reach us, leading to the dark sky we see when we look up at night.

Dolphin Head Nebula taken by Ben Brown on February 23 2024

The Dolphin Head Nebula, Sh 2-308, is an emission nebula caused by the Wolf-Rayet star EZ Canis Majoris. WR stars have completed fusion of hydrogen and are now fusing heavier elements such as helium and carbon. They have unique emission spectrums for this reason, with no hydrogen emission lines.

The temperature of WR stars is much higher than typical stars, reaching 20,000 K to 210,000 K. WR stars are some of the most luminous stars due to their high temperatures, but most of their output is in the ultraviolet spectrum, meaning we can't see it with the naked eye.

This UV radiation ionizes the gas around it, leading to the emission nebula you can see in the photograph.

The Large Magellanic Cloud taken by Rory Broesder on Februrary 18 2023

The LMC is a satellite galaxy to the Milky Way, set to collide in 2.4 billion years. It is an easily observable object from the southern hemisphere and is the fourth brightest galaxy in the local group. Within this galaxy is the Tarantula Nebula, a very active star forming region.

It was once a barred spiral galaxy before it was disrupted through tidal interactions with the Milky Way galaxy and Small Magellanic Cloud. In fact, there is a bridge of hot gas showing the connection between the LMC and SMC which is also an active star forming region.

The LMC is one of around sixty other satellite galaxies orbiting the Milky Way.

Flame Nebula taken by Hubble Space Telescope

This nebula is an emission nebula— a star forming region in the Orion constellation. The nebula is filled with young stars; however, dense gas obscures the majority of the cluster.

In this cluster, it contains at least one O-type star that emits light, exciting the gas around it.

O-type stars are huge blue stars that are easily seen from Earth, even from farther distances. They have extremely high surface temperatures, causing them to lose energy at a much faster rate than other stars. These massive stars live for much smaller lifetimes, before resulting in supernova explosions and eventually forming a neutron star or black hole.

Vela Supernova Remnant taken on February 6 2021 by jeff2011 on Astrobin

The supernova remnant resides within the Vela constellation, having exploded over ten thousand years ago. It is the closes supernova remnant to Earth. Observational data from this remnant provided proof that supernova’s can produce neutron stars.

Supernovas occur at the end of a star’s life. Stars with mass over eight solar masses finish burning the hydrogen in their core and become a red supergiant. Successive fusion then occurs until the core contains iron. Fusion can no longer occur at iron since it is not energetically favorable. Gravity then takes over leading to a supernova explosion— expelling a huge amount of stellar material.

Neutron stars can form as a result of this, as protons and electrons collide to combine into neutrons. The neutron stars are stable by neutron degeneracy pressure. This pressure is caused the Pauli Exclusion principal which prevents neutrons from having the same positions.

The Soul Nebula taken by Kurt Wallberg on Februrary 1 2024

This image depicts The Soul Nebula (IC 1848) on the left and Westhout 5 (IC 1848) on the right. Westhout 5 is part of the bigger Soul Nebula. It’s an emission nebula— consisting of the star forming regions with ionized hydrogen gas and dark nebula. Dark nebulas are when the stellar medium is so dense that the light from objects behind it cannot pass through.

As you can see in the image, there are cavities in the gas. These were carved out by stars due to radiation and stellar winds. There is a theory of triggered star formation, which describes that these cavities compress the gas around it to trigger star formation. Images such as these have been used to help prove this theory, showing that the closer the star is to the cavity, the younger it is.

International Space Station transit of the Moon taken by Quinn Groessl on January 31 2023.

The ISS orbits the Earth at a typical velocity of 28000 km/h (very fast) and at a typical altitude of 400 km. Gravitational forces keep the ISS in constant freefall, but with the forward velocity of the ISS, the overall distance to Earth and velocity stays pretty much the same.

These transits are pretty infrequent. The angle of the moon from the orbital plane can vary over time, and any small changes in the ISS orbit can have major effects on its path. In the sky, they are both fairly small objects, leading to smaller probabilities as well.

An important factor that allows these events to occur is that the ISS is traveling much faster relative to our perspective on Earth compared to the moon. The ISS orbits the Earth around 16 times a day, while the moon takes around a month (27.3 days).

You can see the video of it at this link. It's incredible how precise astronomers have to be with how short of a timespan there is to record this.

NGC 2403 taken by John C. Yu on January 30 2024

NGC 2403 is a intermediate spiral galaxy. There are typically two types of spiral galaxies: barred and regular spirals. This galaxy falls between the two, denoted as SAB.

The bar in spiral galaxies forms due to gravitational instability. However, this bar can help with star formation as it funnels material to the center of the galaxy.

Interactions with neighboring galaxies or having greater instability can lead to a greater bar shape in the galaxy. However, dark matter halos also play a big role in having the opposite effect, often preventing the bar from forming. These combined factors lead to the median shape of this galaxy.

Intermediate spiral galaxies can eventually evolve into either regular spiral galaxies or barred spiral galaxies, but we won't be there to see the final form of NGC 2403.

Rosette Nebula taken by Suzanne Beers on January 29 2024

The Rosette Nebula is part of the Milky Way Galaxy and is located 5,000 light years away from Earth. The Rosette Nebula is an emission nebula (not to be confused with planetary nebula).

These kinds of nebula are formed around massive, hot stars, whose ultraviolet radiation ionizes the surrounding gas. The excited atoms in the nebula also emit radiation, causing the nebula's glow.

The Rosette Nebula is also home to star forming regions, as observed by the Chandra X-ray Observatory. These are especially concentrated in the bottom of the nebula, although it is difficult to see in this image. Note that this photo uses the Hubble color palette.

Messier 66 taken by Hubble Space Telescope on January 28 2021

In this picture, it showcases the star forming regions of the galaxies, which can be seen in red. Star forming regions are vulnerable to disturbances, which can cause the gas in the interstellar medium to collapse into dense clumps of material. These are called protostars.

During the formation of these protostars, gravitational energy is converted into thermal energy. If there is enough thermal energy produced, it is enough to spark nuclear fusion. The star then joins the main sequence.

Due to nature of the star forming regions, it often yields the creation of star clusters, since many stars are being created in close proximity. Large stars especially can emit radiation and produce stellar winds, which pushes the star away from these regions.

Comet C/2022 E3 (ZTF) taken by Auvo Korpi on January 27 2023.

During the formation of the sun, there was a protoplanetary disk (cloud of debris and gas) that orbited around it. The farthest parts of this disk were far from the heat emitted, and cooled down. The cold material clumped with frozen gasses and water, creating icy rocks.

These rocks orbit far away from the sun in huge elliptical orbits, in the Kuiper belt and Oort cloud. At one point, the icy rocks get closer to the sun. The ice is heated and releases dust, known as the comet’s trail.

Comet ZTF was first discovered in March 2022, but came closest to Earth in a long time in January of 2023. At first, the comet was believed to be an asteroid, but when it got closer to the sun, it was observed to have its signature green glow.

The green comes from the diatomic carbon, which is part of the comet’s atmosphere. As it got closer to the sun, the molecules became excited and radiate green light. This is also why the green color doesn’t extend to the tail, instead it is happening in the comet’s nucleus.

I remember going out with my telescope around this time to view the comet. At that point I think it was just above the Taurus constellation, and I had a lot of trouble angling the lens to point that high up.

I don’t remember being able to see the tail, but just with the naked eye, I could see the comet’s light. I can’t believe it’s already been two years since then. Time really flies.

NGC 1316 taken by Hubble Space Telescope on January 26 2021

NGC 1316 is an elliptical galaxy formed by the collisions of multiple galaxies near the constellation Forax in the southern hemisphere. What makes this galaxy unique is the dark lanes of dust visible around the galaxy. These are indicative that they galaxies NGC 1316 was formed by were spiral galaxies.

What helped scientists determine that this galaxy was created due to a "recent" collision where different types of images taken of NGC 1316. Hubble's images helped to reveal huge collisional shells and a small number of globular clusters. Collisional shells are formed from debris of the parent galaxy, which under the effects of gravity and tidal forces. These tails last for a long time, before eventually being reabsorbed into the progenitor (object of origin). Globular clusters are a group of stars bound by gravity.

These two events were indicative of a merger that occurred within the past couple billion years.