Southern Galaxies Now In Starbase

There are new image sets available on Insight Observatory's Starbase for downloading! Franck Jobard co-owner of Deep-Sky Chile and Insight Observatory's affiliate remote telescope, ATEO-3 captured around 8 hours of luminance image data of galaxies NGC 1365 and NGC 1316-17-18 located in the southern constellation, Fornax. The image data was acquired in November and December of 2019. ATEO-3 is a 12.5" f/9 Quasar Ritchey Chretien, that is available for image requests on our Educational and Public Image Request forms as well as image sets for subscribing to in Starbase. Between gathering data for Insight Observatory's educational programs, Franck is currently in the process of capturing many hours of red, green, and blue image data through the 12" RC. This data combined will make for excellent color image processing of the galaxies.

NGC 1365 imaged on ATEO-3, 12.5" f/9 Quasar Ritchey Chretien - 8 hours of image data acquired by Franck Jobard and processed by Utkarsh Mishra.

NGC 1365 is a barred spiral galaxy in the Fornax cluster. Within the larger long bar stretching across the center of the galaxy appears to be a smaller bar that comprises the core, with an apparent size of about 50″ × 40″. This second bar is more prominent in infrared images of the central region of the galaxy, and likely arises from a combination of dynamical instabilities of stellar orbits in the region, along with gravity, density waves, and the overall rotation of the disc. The inner bar structure likely rotates as a whole more rapidly than the larger long bar, creating the diagonal shape seen in images.

NGC 1316-17-18 imaged on ATEO-3, 12.5" f/9 Quasar Ritchey Chretien - 8 hours of image data acquired by Franck Jobard and processed by Utkarsh Mishra.

NGC 1316 is a lenticular galaxy about 60 million light-years away in the constellation Fornax It is a radio galaxy and at 1400 MHz is the fourth-brightest radio source in the sky.

NGC 1317 (also known as NGC 1318) is a barred spiral galaxy in the constellation Fornax, in the Fornax cluster. It was discovered by Julius Schmidt on January 19, 1865. It appears to be interacting with much larger NGC 1316, but the uncertainty of distance and scales of tidal distortions make this uncertain.

Source: Wikipedia NGC 1365 and NGC 1316-17-18.

ATEO-3 Starbase Image Set Subscriptions:

• Standard: $0.20 per minute of image set exposure time
• Education: $0.17 per minute of image set exposure time

To learn more about Insight Observatory's Starbase CLICK HERE. To access Starbase, please log in or signup here.

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Goodbye Betelgeuse?

About five nights ago, I stepped outside, to take a look. That is, up. It's a habit, formed, long ago as a young, budding astronomer (and, 'Rock Star' Drummer...well, never mind about the 'rock-star' drummer part), but - any time that the night sky is clear of clouds - and I know about it - I do a "status" check; just, making sure that, "everything's there - and, things are the way they're supposed to be". Kind of like looking in on your kids, long after they've gone to bed...

While I'm out there, I do a sub-conscious, magnitude comparison, between the stars of the constellation, 'Orion' - a relative, close, loosely-grouped gathering of red and blue, 'super-giant' stars, out here at our 'end' of the galaxy. Throughout my entire life - the stars, "Betelguese", and "Rigel"; the 'right shoulder', and 'left foot', respectively; of the Hunter, Orion - have always appeared to be close in brightness, with the blue, Rigel, out-shining the red, and somewhat variable, Betelguese - by just a few "points". Every night. Every year. Always the same - my whole, life-long, life...

...but on the night of 21 DEC 2019 - something was, very, very different. Indeed -- things were NOT, the way, they were supposed to be.

Betelgeuse is generally the eleventh-brightest star in the night sky and the second-brightest in the constellation of Orion. Image by Muir Evenden on Insight Observatory's 16" f/3.7 astrograph reflector (ATEO-1).

The 'ancient's', had understood the stars to be, 'immovable', 'invariable', and 'eternal' objects. No one could blame them; the distances to the stars - any star, even the very closest - is an unfathomable number of miles away from 'us'. (24,900,000,000,000 - to be exact). Any motion through 3-dimensional space goes undetected; although the stars, *are* moving through space, in their long trip around the galactic core of the Milky Way galaxy (that's ours), they are so distant that their motion is not perceptible to us, here on Earth - and, not to the ancient's, either. Compared with the rest of the universe - we just live at a 'fleeting' pace, but the truth is - the stars do move. And change; sometimes, catastrophically.

The stars of the Orion group are, in fact, a relatively, loosely-grouped, 'open cluster', in which, the grouping is moving through space, together, as a whole, around the galaxy. The group is between, about, 500 to 900 light-years (LY) distant. That's pretty close, by cosmological standards, and accounts for their relative brightnesses, being so high, compared with most other stars. These blue-white beauties are some of the brightest stars that can be seen from Earth - just a bit dimmer, than the brightest star, 'Sirius', which happens to lie very nearby. In fact, if you walk outside, on any, clear, winter night - the brightest stars that you will see will be those of the Orion group.

Astronomers have learned much about the 'Orion group', also known as the 'Orion OB-1 Association', over the decades. They are, distinctly, set apart from the other stars in our, somewhat, limited field of view, in that, quite a few of them are extremely large, bright stars, of a type of star, called a 'super-giant'.

Well, 'So what!?'

OK, well - *here's*, "what": beginning with a 3-star asterism that most people are acquainted with - "Orion's Belt", those three stars are part of the Orion OB-1 Association. The left-most star in the belt, 'Alnitak', is a blue type, supergiant, at 800 LY distant - Alnitak shines in at a monstrous - 100,000 times - brighter than the sun! That's because it is 40 times the diameter of the sun!

The next star, the 'center' star of Orion's 'belt', 'Alnilam', another, blue supergiant, is 375,000 times as bright as the sun. That's because it is 84 times the sun's diameter. The last, or 'right-most' star in the belt, 'Mintaka', is 36 times the diameter of the sun, and blares in at 90,000 times the output of the sun. Another blue supergiant.

The constellation Orion the Hunter - Illustration Credit: Earth Sky and The Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) captured this image of Betelgeuse, revealing its lopsided shape and a huge bright spot. ALMA (ESO / NAOJ / NRAO) / E. O’Gorman / P. Kervella

Most of the stars that you see, up there, in the dusky grey (it is not black anymore, where I live), are older, dimmer, and somewhat redder stars than these 'Mavericks' of Orion. Supergiant stars are stars that are on their way out. They have near the end of their time on the main sequence, drifting toward oblivion, but, one star out of this group, has aged much faster than the others. And it is, now, visually, very obvious.

The red supergiant, "Betelguese", is now, about ten times, less bright than I remember it as a kid. And it's dimmer, now, than it was, the last time I saw it, just over a year ago. The great, red, supergiant is now at the end of its lifespan. The constellation, "Orion", has changed.

The once, bright, red star, has begun to shrink, inward, toward a collapsing core. Having burned through all of its original hydrogen mass - and its converted, helium mass, it is in the process of fusing its remaining elemental composition, all the way down to iron. Once it has reached this stage, its thermal, expansion energy will no longer counter the energy of gravity, and it will collapse - blowing itself, in a crescendo of blazing light, metals, and x-rays -- to smithereens. It will leave behind, a cold, dead, neutronic core.

Betelguese, is now, ready to do just that.*

*It is difficult to know, exactly, when a star is going to actually go supernova. That could happen, anywhere, from - tonight - to a few more, thousand years. But, it could be - tonight!

Dale Alan Bryant
Senior Contributing Science Writer

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What's In The Sky - January 2020

January kicks off the New Year with wonderful sights for backyard astronomers to enjoy with friends and family. Don't forget to bundle up on clear, cold evenings as you explore the sparkling night sky. Here are a few of our top picks for January stargazers:

Quadrantid Meteor Shower

The Quadrantid Meteor Shower will be the first substantial meteor shower of 2020, with an estimated peak rate of around 120 meteors per hour. The shower will be active until January 12th, but peak rates are expected around 01:00 PST on January 4th. The Moon will be in the first quarter but fortunately will set around midnight providing little interference.

Don’t miss the Quadrantid meteor shower peak on 4 January 2019. Image Credit: Astronomy Now

New Moon

The nights around January 24th will be the best nights for observations due to the dark skies resulting from the New Moon. Bundle up, grab a telescope and your astrophotography gear and get out there to view and image those elusive fainter deep sky objects.

January Close Approaches

• The Moon & Mars 2°40' 07:00 PST January 20
• Venus & Neptune 0°18' 18:00 PST January 27

Orion High in the Sky

Their namesake constellation will be well-placed for backyard astronomers throughout January. Some of our favorite targets in or near Orion are:

• M42, The Great Nebula In Orion - Visible as the middle star of Orion's sword, this emission nebula looks amazing in everything from binoculars to a large aperture Dobsonian. Can you see the trapezium, the 4-star system at the center? Even viewers from moderately light-polluted areas can get a good sense of the glory of this object using an Orion UltraBlock or Oxygen-III filter.


• M78 - Another, much fainter, emission nebula M78 is located just left and above the left-most star in Orion's belt. Again, an Oxygen-III filter can help.


• NGC 2174/2175 - A large emission patch and star cluster, this complex is located near the top of Orion's raised "hand". Under dark and clear skies this can be seen in larger binoculars such as Orion's 15x70 or 20x80 Astronomy Binoculars.

January Challenge Object

Just west of Rigel, the bright blue/white star that marks the western "knee" of Orion, lies the Witch Head Nebula (IC 2118), in the neighboring constellation Eridanus. The Witch-Head is a reflection nebula that shines from reflected light off of Rigel, like the reflection nebula in the Pleiades, M45. You don't need a big telescope; a wide field of view, low power, and a dark sky are needed to see this challenging nebula. (Hint: Don't use filters)

All objects described above can easily be seen with the suggested equipment from a dark sky site, a viewing location some distance away from city lights where light pollution and when bright moonlight does not overpower the stars.

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