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starman_astro

@starman_astro

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Amateur astrophotographer on a quest to capture the wonders of the endless sea that has no shores. All content is my own. 🌟

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📷 : @starman_astro

Bernes 142 è una nube oscura situata nel cuore di Chamaeleon 🌌🔭👍🏻🔝

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Bernes 142 is a dark cloud at the heart of Chamaeleon I, one of the Sun’s nearest stellar nurseries at roughly 600 light years. Bernes’ 1977 catalogue surveyed bright nebulae buried in opaque dust. This field holds three, each a lantern lit by a star that has only just begun to shine. From Chile, this southern cloud circles the celestial pole without setting.

Right of center and a little below, Cederblad 111, an electric blue reflection nebula, wraps around HD 97048, a young Herbig Ae/Be star still carrying its birth disk. Dust streams past in fine combed filaments, like smoke caught in a beam of light. Upper left, Cederblad 110 answers in warm amber, a reflection nebula split by a dark lane and hollowed into a C shape. Hidden within is Ced 110 IRS 4, a protostellar binary so deeply embedded that only infrared telescopes can see it. Its light has let the James Webb Space Telescope probe the ices frozen onto the cloud’s grains.

Below and right of the blue, the Chamaeleon Infrared Nebula opens as a small orange fan: a bipolar reflection nebula carved by jets from a newborn low mass star tunneling out of the cloud. Faint crimson knots between the nebulae are shocked gas where other outflows strike the cloud.

What holds me in this image is how much of it is dark. The nebulae are small islands in a molecular cloud folding over itself in brown and ochre layers thick enough to swallow the background stars. Seventeen hours of exposure went into that darkness, chasing the cloud’s faint texture until the shadows themselves became the subject.

Captured from my remote setup at Obstech in Chile:
🔭 PlaneWave CDK500 Observatory System
📸 Moravian C5A-100M Camera
🎨 Chroma L, R, G, B Filters
📀 L: 68×300s, R: 80×180s, G: 78×180s, B: 74×180s (17.27 hours)
🖥️ Processed in PixInsight and Adobe Photoshop

#astrophotography
#darknebula
#chamaeleonconstellation
#Astrofotografia

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🔭 A deep-space giant in action 🌌

Today’s featured target is LBN 990, a faint cloud of interstellar dust and gas stretching across a rich star field. Objects like this are often overlooked, but long exposures with premium equipment can reveal an incredible amount of hidden structure.

Astrophotographer Ani Shastry captured this stunning image using a PlaneWave CDK500 Observatory System - a world-class 20-inch telescope designed for professional-grade imaging. The combination of exceptional optics and careful data collection brought out the delicate details of this elusive target beautifully.

Give Ani a follow at @starman_astro for more breathtaking views of the deep sky! 🔭✨
________
🔭 @observable.space PlaneWave CDK500 Observatory System
📷 Moravian C5A-100M Camera
🎨 Chroma LRGB Filters

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📷 : @starman_astro

Stupendi dettagli in questa Nebulosa Elmo di Thor
🌌🪖🔨

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NGC 2359: A Duck, A Helmet, or A Hummingbird?

NGC 2359 is most often known as Thor’s Helmet, and sometimes affectionately as the Duck Nebula. Both names make sense: there is a mythic crest, a sweeping shell, and a strange creature-like silhouette emerging from the starfield. But in this rendition, I cannot help seeing something more delicate — almost a cosmic hummingbird, suspended mid-flight, its wings opening into the surrounding darkness while its luminous body glows with electric blue structure.

At the heart of NGC 2359 is a powerful Wolf-Rayet star, one of the rare and massive stellar engines that sculpt the space around them through intense radiation and violent stellar winds. Those winds have carved the surrounding gas into a vast, turbulent bubble, pushing oxygen-rich material outward into translucent blue veils while hydrogen glows along the swept-up edges in deep crimson. The result is a nebula that feels both fragile and ferocious: a creature of light formed by the pressure of a dying star.

This image was acquired in HOO + RGB, allowing the oxygen and hydrogen structures to carry the main nebular form while the RGB data preserves a more natural starfield. The central shell reveals intricate filaments, soft shock fronts, and overlapping folds of gas, while the extended wings stretch outward like motion frozen across interstellar time. Whether one sees a helmet, a duck, or a hummingbird, NGC 2359 remains one of the most beautiful examples of stellar transformation — a massive star writing its final chapters into the surrounding night.

Captured from my remote setup at Obstech in Chile:
PlaneWave CDK500 Observatory System
Moravian C5A-100M Camera
Chroma R, G, B, 3nm Ha and 3nm Oiii Filters
R: 30×120s, G: 30×120s, B: 30×120s, H: 20×1200s, O: 20×1200s (16.33 hours)
Processed in PixInsight and Adobe Photoshop

#thorhelmetnebula
#canismajorconstellation
#emissionnebula
#astrofotografia

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📷 : @starman_astro

Amanti cosmici intrecciati: una rivelazione su NGC 4038 e NGC 4039: Avvicinate in un lento e inevitabile abbraccio a circa 45-70 milioni di anni luce di distanza, le galassie Antenne sono un vivido ritratto dell'interazione e della trasformazione cosmica.
🌀♥️🔭👍🏻

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...
Cosmic Lovers Entwined — An NGC 4038 and NGC 4039 Exposé: Locked in a slow, inevitable embrace some 45-70 million light-years away, the Antennae Galaxies are a vivid portrait of cosmic interaction and transformation. NGC 4038 and NGC 4039 are two once-separate spiral galaxies now entwined by gravity, their collision igniting waves of star formation and stretching vast tidal tails — like delicate antennae — far into intergalactic space.

In this image, soft blue arcs trace regions rich in young, hot stars, while glowing magenta knots mark intense stellar nurseries where gas clouds are collapsing under the strain of the encounter. Dust lanes, warm and textured, weave through the scene like echoes of the galaxies’ former structures, slowly being rewritten by time and gravity. The luminous core between them glows as a shared heartbeat — chaotic, radiant, and alive.

This is a moment frozen in a dance that spans hundreds of millions of years: destruction giving rise to creation, separation yielding unity. There is something quietly romantic here — a reminder that even on the grandest scales, beauty often emerges from connection, and light is born where worlds meet.

Captured from my remote setup at Obstech in Chile:
PlaneWave CDK500 Observatory System
Moravian C3-61000 PRO Camera
Chroma R, G, and B Filters
L: 60x600s, R: 64x300s, G: 64x300s, B: 64x300s (26 hours)
Processed in PixInsight and Adobe Photoshop

This one is for you laramarrr. Thanks for being my galactic companion!

#antennaegalaxies
#crowconstellation
#galassie
#cosmic

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📷 : @starman_astro

NGC 1097, una spettacolare galassia a spirale barrata nella Fornace, a 45 milioni di anni luce di distanza.
NGC 1097 è famosa per la sua spettacolare barra centrale e i suoi ampi bracci a spirale, ma ciò che la distingue davvero sono i deboli flussi di marea, scie stellari spettrali che avvolgono la galassia
🌀🤩🔝🔭

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...
After finally bringing my new PlaneWave CDK500 online at Obstech, I captured my very first image from the system — NGC 1097, a spectacular barred spiral galaxy in Fornax, 45 million light-years away.
NGC 1097 is famous for its dramatic central bar and sweeping spiral arms, but what really sets it apart are the faint tidal streams—ghostlike stellar trails wrapping around the galaxy. These are the remnants of dwarf galaxies that NGC 1097 has torn apart over cosmic time. Under the dark, steady skies of the Andes, those delicate structures begin to emerge with clarity and depth that I’ve never been able to reach before.

Seeing this galaxy appear on the screen—sharp stars, smooth signal, and those wisps of tidal debris—felt like watching the telescope take its very first breath. A perfect “first light” moment.
This is just the start. The southern sky is wide open now, and I can’t wait to see what this new system will reveal.

🔭✨ Clear skies from Chile. More soon.

Captured from my remote setup at Obstech in Chile:
PlaneWave CDK500 Observatory System
Moravian C3-61000 PRO Camera
Chroma L, R, G, and B Filters
L: 90x300s, R: 30x600s, G: 30x600s, B: 30x600s (22.5 hours)
Processed in PixInsight and Adobe Photoshop

#ngc1097
#galassia
#astronomia
#fornaxconstellation
#astronomypicturesdaily
#astrophoto
#astro
#astro_photography_
#astrofotografia
#astronomy
#astronomyphotography
#cosmos
#deepsky
#deepskyastrophotography
#yourastronomy
#galaxy
#milkyway
#nebula
#space
#stars
#telescope
#universe
#astronomyphotography
#astrophotographie
#astronomicalobject
#astrophotographers

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Which space image from 2025 is your favorite?

Our “Best of 2025” voting is officially open! Every year we invite space enthusiasts to help choose the most stunning images, moments, and discoveries from across the Cosmos. These are some of the candidates for the best space images!

Cast your official vote at the 🔗 in bio!

1️⃣: The Squid Nebula. This photo of the Squid Nebula won Ani Shastri the Photographer of the Year honor at the 2025 Astrophotography Prize.
📸: Ani Shastri @starman_astro

2️⃣: IRAS 04302+2247. In August, the European Space Agency shared this photo of IRAS 04302+2247, a planet-forming disc located about 525 light-years away, combining data captured by JWST and the Hubble Space Telescope.
📸: ESA / NASA / CSA / M. Villenave et al.

3️⃣: The Vera C. Rubin Observatory, the world’s newest and most powerful survey telescope, released its first science images on June 23, including this extremely detailed picture of the Virgo galaxy cluster.
📸: NSF–DOE Vera C. Rubin Observatory

4️⃣: Sprite from ISS. NASA astronaut Nichole Ayers captured this view from the International Space Station on July 3. It shows a sprite, which is a brief lightning-like event triggered by electrical activity.
📸; Nichole Ayers / NASA.

5️⃣: Moons of Uranus from JWST. This composite infrared image captured on Feb. 2, 2025 by JWST shows Uranus, its rings, and 14 of its 29 known moons, including the newly discovered S/2025 U1.
📸: NASA et al.

6️⃣: Jupiter from Juno. NASA’s Juno spacecraft captured this image of Jupiter on Jan. 28.
📸: NASA / JPL-Caltech / SwRI / MSSS /Jackie Branc

7️⃣: 3I/ATLAS from Hubble. Comet 3I/ATLAS as seen by the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope.
📸: NASA, ESA, D. Jewitt (UCLA), J. DePasquale (STScI)

8️⃣: This image captured on March 9 shows the Sun nearing the peak of its activity cycle. It is the widest high-resolution view of the Sun ever taken by the Solar Orbiter spacecraft.
📸: ESA / NASA / Solar Orbiter / EUI Team / E. Kraaikamp (ROB)

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📷 : @starman_astro

NGC 6888 nota anche come Nebulosa Crescente è una nebulosa diffusa visibile nella parte meridionale della costellazione del Cigno
🌌🤩

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...
NGC 6888, known as the Crescent Nebula, is a cosmic bubble of glowing gas and sculpted shock fronts located about 5,000 light-years away in the constellation Cygnus. This emission nebula is the result of powerful stellar winds cast off by the massive Wolf-Rayet star WR 136, which is shedding its outer layers at an incredible pace. The expelled material is colliding with older, slower winds from the star’s earlier red giant phase, creating a complex and chaotic structure of filaments, arcs, and overlapping shock waves.

NGC 6888 is both a challenge and a jewel. The nebula spans about 25 light-years across and glows predominantly in hydrogen-alpha (Hα) and oxygen-III (OIII) wavelengths, making narrowband imaging the preferred technique to capture its full glory. In Hα, the nebula reveals fiery red arcs tracing the denser hydrogen shells, while OIII brings out the ethereal, electric blue-green structures at the heart of the shock fronts—often forming an overlapping double-bubble structure reminiscent of a brain-like texture.

Captured from my remote setup at Sierra Remote Observatories in Auberry, California:
PlaneWave CDK600 Observatory System
Moravian C5A-100M Camera
Chroma R, G, B, 5nm Ha, and 3nm Oiii Filters
R: 24x300s, G: 24x300s, B: 24x300s, Ha: 25x1200s, Oiii: 27x1200s (23.33 hours)
Processed in PixInsight, Adobe Photoshop, and Affinity Photo 2

#crescentnebula
#ngc6888
#emissionnebula
#cignusconstellation
#astronomia
#astronomypicturesdaily
#amateurastrophotography
#astrophoto
#astro
#astro_photography_
#astrofotografia
#astronomy
#astronomyphotography
#cosmos
#deepsky
#deepskyastrophotography
#yourastronomy
#galaxy
#milkyway
#nebula
#space
#stars
#telescope
#universe
#astronomyphotography
#astrophotographie
#astronomicalobject
#astrophotographers

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📷 : @starman_astro

IC 5146 è un ammasso aperto legato ad una nebulosa diffusa visibile nella costellazione del Cigno
È un piccolo ammasso circondato da una nebulosa molto raccolta (a forma di Bozzolo), connessa a sua volta ad un sistema di nebulosità oscure, conosciute con la sigla B 168, che si estende per circa 2 gradi in direzione di M39 🌌🔭😍

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Nestled within the rich star fields of Cygnus, IC 5146, also known as the Cocoon Nebula, is a stunning example of both stellar birth and cosmic artistry. Located approximately 2,500 light-years away, the nebula spans about 15 light-years and glows with the warm hues of hydrogen-alpha and oxygen-III emissions, surrounding a cluster of newly formed stars. At the nebula’s core lies a massive young star, just a few hundred thousand years old, whose radiation illuminates the surrounding gas while stellar winds carve out the nebula’s bubble-like shape.

Astrophotographers are drawn to IC 5146 not only for its radiant emission nebula but also for the intricate dark dust lanes that stream westward — remnants of the larger molecular cloud that birthed the stars within. Capturing the Cocoon requires a balanced blend of narrowband and broadband imaging, revealing both subtle color gradients and sharp structural contrast. This deep-field view from my PlaneWave CDK24 reveals the Cocoon seemingly emerging from a river of dust — the B168 dark nebula — creating a striking visual narrative of star formation piercing through interstellar shadow.

Exceptional seeing and clear skies at SRO this summer meant I was able to acquire just over 40 hours of data on this target in L, R, G, B and Ha, of which around 35.83 hours were usable.

Captured from my remote setup at Sierra Remote Observatories in Auberry, California:
PlaneWave CDK600 Observatory System
Moravian C5A-100M Camera
Chroma L, R, G, B, and 5nm Ha Filters
L: 65x600s, R: 39x600s, G: 38x600s, B: 37x600s, Ha: 18x1200s (35.83 hours)
Processed in PixInsight, Adobe Photoshop, and Affinity Photo 2

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📷 : @starman_astro

NGC 7129 è una regione H II osservabile nella costellazione di Cefeo; è una delle strutture più remote del Complesso nebuloso molecolare di Cefeo, del quale fa parte
A sud e a est si estende una vasta nube dalla forma che ricorda quella di un rene, delle dimensioni di circa 11 parsec (36 anni luce), in una cui cavità si trovano molti dei membri più deboli dell'ammasso aperto associato, nel cui bordo orientale è presente una cresta nebulosa di grandi dimensioni 🌌👍🔭😍

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...
NGC 7129 is a radiant reflection nebula nestled in the constellation Cepheus, about 3,300 light-years away from Earth.
Though relatively small at only about 10 light-years across, this nebula glows with vibrant hues and harbors a bustling nursery of young stars. NGC 7129 is often described as a cosmic rosebud -- its shape and coloration evoking delicate petals against the darkness of space.
The central region is lit by the reflection of starlight off surrounding dust, giving it a bluish glow typical of reflection nebulae.
Surrounding this blue heart are reddish arcs composed of ionized hydrogen gas excited by powerful stellar winds and outflows from newborn stars (some less than a million years old). These arcs outline Herbig-Haro objects, created when jets from forming stars slam into surrounding material at high speeds.

Captured from my remote setup at Sierra Remote Observatories in Auberry, California:
PlaneWave CDK600 Observatory System
Moravian C5A-100M Camera
Chroma L, R, G, B and 3nm Ha Filters
L: 66x600s, R: 30x600s, G: 30x600s, B: 30x600s, Ha: 20x900s (31 hours)
Processed in PixInsight, Adobe Photoshop, and Affinity Photo 2

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📷 : @starman_astro

M 100 (nota anche come NGC 4321) è una galassia a spirale che si trova in direzione della costellazione della Chioma di Berenice, alla distanza di 55 milioni di anni luce 🌀😍🙌

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...
In the heart of the Virgo Cluster lies Messier 100 (M100) — a grand design spiral galaxy that dazzles like a cosmic pinwheel. Roughly 55 million light-years from Earth in the constellation Coma Berenices, M100 is one of the brightest and most symmetric spirals in the sky, showcasing sweeping arms laced with clusters of young blue stars and pink nebulae where stars are being born. Its tightly wound arms and brilliant nucleus echo the classic form of a galactic masterpiece. But M100 is only the star of the show in a much grander performance.

Surrounding it is a "galaxy galore" — a breathtaking swarm of distant galaxies, scattered across the frame like diamonds in a velvet sky. Some are edge-on galaxies, thin and sharp like cosmic blades of light. Others appear as glowing elliptical halos or spiral swirls seen face-on, their soft glows whispering of uncountable stars. Many of these are members of the Virgo Cluster, the nearest large cluster of galaxies to our Local Group, containing over 1,300 (and possibly up to 2,000) galaxies gravitationally bound together.

In this stunning vista, which is much more evident in the mouse-over black-and-white version at the end, galaxies don’t merely dot the background — they fill it. The field is a window into the vast architecture of the universe, revealing layers upon layers of structure stretching far beyond our own Milky Way.

Captured from my remote setup at Sierra Remote Observatories in Auberry, California:
PlaneWave CDK600 Observatory System
Moravian C5A-100M Camera
Chroma L, R, G, B Filters
L: 85x600s, R: 43x600s, G: 46x600s, B: 45x600s (36.5 hours)
Processed in PixInsight, Adobe Photoshop, and Affinity Photo 2

@planewaveinstruments
@universe_view_screen
@astronomypicturesdaily

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📷 : @starman_astro

Abell 33 è una nebulosa planetaria debole , situata nella costellazione dell'Idra, a circa 2.700 anni luce dalla Terra posta dietro alla stella HD 83535, che la fa' sembrare un anello con un diamante.
🌌💍😍🔭

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...
Abell 33 is a faint but hauntingly beautiful planetary nebula located in the constellation Hydra, roughly 2,700 light-years from Earth. It spans about one light-year across and is the glowing remnant of a dying star that shed its outer layers near the end of its life. The core of the original star now shines as a white dwarf, illuminating the ejected gas with ultraviolet light.

What makes Abell 33 particularly striking in astrophotography is a cosmic coincidence: a bright foreground star, HD 83535, appears just in front of the nebula’s edge, giving the impression of a brilliant diamond set in a translucent blue ring. This alignment creates a stunning visual effect that has earned the nickname "the diamond ring nebula", though it's not related to the more famous diamond ring effect seen during solar eclipses.

Captured from my remote setup at Sierra Remote Observatories in Auberry, California:
PlaneWave CDK600 Observatory System
ZWO ASI6200MM and Moravian C5A-100M Cameras
Chroma R, G, B and 3nm Oiii Filters
R: 17x600s, G: 17x600s, B: 13x600s, Oiii: 62x900s (23 hours)
Processed in PixInsight, Adobe Photoshop, and Affinity Photo 2

#ringnebula
#planetarynebula
#diamondring
#hydraconstellation
#astronomia
#astronomypicturesdaily
#amateurastrophotography
#astrophoto
#astro
#astro_photography_
#astrofotografia
#astronomy
#astronomyphotography
#cosmos
#deepsky
#deepskyastrophotography
#yourastronomy
#galaxy
#milkyway
#nebula
#space
#stars
#telescope
#universe
#astronomyphotography
#astrophotographie
#astronomicalobject
#astrophotographers

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Up close and personal!

Astrophotographer Ani Shastry (@starman_astro) took advantage of 24 inches of aperture to capture this image of Bode's Galaxy with incredible detail. When using a scope with nearly 4,000mm of focal length, the full frame sensor of ZWO's 6200 series camera allows Ani to still squeeze relatively large targets into the field of view. Check out more of @starman_astro to see some jaw-dropping results!

If you're looking for the largest field of view possible (and have a compatible scope), a full frame camera may be the way to go. Check out the full range of sensors at AgenaAstro.com!
___________
@planewaveinstruments CDK600 telescope
@zwoastro 6200MM Pro Camera
Chroma LRGB & 5nm Ha filters

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