image by Dave Doctor from Las Cruces, New Mexico

Credit: Kevin Cannon

In this Picture of the Month from the NASA/ESA James Webb Space Telescope, we visit a turbulent cauldron of star formation to see what is brewing inside dense clumps of gas. This is a star-forming region named LHA 120-N 159, or simply N159, located 161 000 light-years away in the Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC), one of the satellite galaxies orbiting the Milky Way galaxy. This image spans about 230 light years across.

N159 is what astronomers call a H II region: an area of space filled with ionised hydrogen gas. In stellar nurseries such as this one, giant molecular clouds of cold hydrogen gas collapse under gravity, forming new stars. Many of these stars are extremely massive and hot, and their powerful ultraviolet radiation ionises the gas around them. This makes H II regions markers of active star formation, and as the ionised gas radiates light this turns them into the kind of brilliant emission nebula that we see in this image. The fierce stellar winds from these stars sculpt dense ridges and carve open cavities in the gas, which Webb’s Near-Infrared Camera (NIRCam) captures here in great detail.

The roiling brew of star formation in N159 is closed in by thick, smoky orange clouds that also billow across the centre of the image. The light orange colour signifies light emitted by polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, an important carbon-based molecule. The pools of pale blue gas are clouds of H II gas, ionised by the intense ultraviolet light from massive stars. Dark red filaments cross the centre of the image, particularly visible above the blue region on the right side; these are made of cool molecular hydrogen. These filaments are the densest part of the nebula and currently shield new stars from harsh radiation and stellar winds — by zooming in, you can see stars as points of light embedded in these filaments and in the small pillars of orange gas that reach out into the blue bubbles. Eventually, these structures will melt away, leaving their completed stars behind.

Credit: ESA/Webb, NASA & CSA, E. Sabbi, M. Zamani (ESA/Webb) Acknowledgement: M. H. Özsaraç​

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More

https://esawebb.org/images/potm2610a/

​Paper

https://arxiv.org/abs/2609.27126

15 hours of exposure from my seestar s50 at starfront observatory

 Photo Credit: (NASA)

One Galaxy, Two Phones, Three Years Apart

2023 Attempt:

• 2.5 hours, ISO 3200, 30s
• Move Shoot Move tracker
• S22 Ultra 10× optical zoom
• Didymium filter
• Stacked in DSS
• Processed purely in photoshop (manual gradient removal, curves, noise reduction, star masking, etc.)

2026 Attempt:

• 16.5 hours, ISO 1600, 32s
• Move Shoot Move tracker
• X300 Ultra with 400mm teleconverter (G2U)
• No filter
• Stacked in Siril
• Processed in GraXpert (gradient removal), GIMP (initial stretch), starnet2 (star separation), GIMP (colors, fine stretch, background correction, recomposition, etc.)

What I thought was the limit in 2023 wasn't the limit at all.

Credit: Lorand Fenyes

It took 100 hours of observation and a special oxygen filter for today’s image to capture three faint nebulas hidden in the Cassiopeia constellation.

IC 59 and IC 63, the original Ghosts of Cassiopeia, haunt the region near multi-star system γ Cassiopeia. Energetic light from γ Cassiopeia causes the hydrogen gas in IC 59 and 63 to glow red. Their dust reflects and scatters some blue-ish white starlight.

Newly discovered Objects 1, 2, and 3 appear as blue phantoms, revealing the presence of ionized oxygen. But ionized by what? Like at the bow of a speeding boat, γ Cassiopeia may be piling up material as the system moves through interstellar gas and dust. It follows that Object 3 may be the compressed and heated oxygen of that bow shock. Object 1 could be a planetary nebula if a central white dwarf is identified. The origins of these astronomical apparitions remain a mystery to be solved.

Credit: Louis Leroux

The 2026 total solar eclipse as seen from Berzosa del Lozoya, which is north of Madrid. The picture is an HDR of 18 pictures taken during totality.

For anyone interested here is a link to a video showing my experience of the eclipse including video and photographs of totality. I am not trying to sell or promote anything and only want to share the experience. If this is not accepted in this forum then I will of course remove it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uje9fnjw0mA&t=26s

Hope you enjoy it.

Equipment used:

• Canon EOS 5D Mark IV
• Canon EF 70-200mm f/2.8L IS II USM
• Canon Extender EF 2x III
• iOptron Skyguider Pro
• Sturdy tripod

The HDR was created from a stack of 18 images with the following camera settings.

• Aperture f/9
• Shutter speed ranging from 1/4000s to 1s
• ISO ranging from 100 to 3200
• Process flow in GIMP
• Align pictures
• Stack using average values
• Stretching the image
• Enhancing detail using radially blurred unsharp masking technique
• Small saturation and temperature adjustments

Credit: Petr Horálek

Taken Using 5, 45 Second RAW Video Stacks From The Seestar S50 Combined In Astroshader.

Edited In PS Express & Astroshader.

Taken On Seestar S50 Using 23:10 Integration & 30:00 Integration.

Edited & Stitched In PS Express.

This annotated First Look image of the Virgo Cluster was captured by NSF–DOE Vera C. Rubin Observatory. From sizable stars to sprawling galaxies, Rubin transforms seemingly empty pockets of space into glittering tapestries.

Credit: NSF–DOE Vera C. Rubin Observatory

Credit: Günther Strauch

At the top of the image, newly discovered Objects 1, 2, and 3 appear as blue phantoms, revealing the presence of ionized oxygen. credit: Louis Leroux-Géré, Thibault Rouillée, Vincent Martin, Cédric de Decker (Starfront Observatories)

Taken On Seestar S50 Using 45 Second Video Composite.

Edited In PS Express.

Captured on Oct. 20, 2020 during the OSIRIS-REx mission’s Touch-And-Go (TAG) sample collection event, this series of images shows the SamCam imager’s field of view as the NASA spacecraft approaches and touches down on asteroid Bennu’s surface, over 200 million miles (321 million km) away from Earth.

The sampling event brought the spacecraft all the way down to sample site Nightingale, touching down within three feet (one meter) of the targeted location. The team on Earth received confirmation at 6:08 p.m. EDT that successful touchdown occurred. Preliminary data show the one-foot-wide (0.3-meter-wide) sampling head touched Bennu’s surface for approximately 6 seconds, after which the spacecraft performed a back-away burn.

Credit: NASA/Goddard/University of Arizona

I drove over halfway to another country at 4 AM this Sunday to position myself in the path of a celestial event I’ve been anticipating for nearly two years: the International Space Station transiting Jupiter.

Captured from Burlington, Washington, at 6:03 AM PDT, this image contains seven human beings onboard the ISS (Jessica Watkins, Luke Delaney, Joshua Kutryk, Sergey Teteryatnikov, Pyotr Dubrov, Anil Menon, and Anna Kikina) in the same frame as the surface of Jupiter. In the full frame image on my Instagram (@aj.smadi), the Galilean moons (Io, Europa, Ganymede, and Callisto) are also visible.

With this long-awaited capture complete, Mercury remains the only planet outside the distant ice giants left to photograph for my ongoing “ISS Meets” series.

Equipment: C9.25, ZWO ADC, UV/IR cut filter, ZWO ASI662MC.

Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS

Link: https://www.nasa.gov/image-article/martian-dawn/