Ecliptic Voyage

The Veil Nebula: Taken under Michigan skies August 5th, 2021 A view spanning six full-moons across the sky, the Veil Nebula is one of the many beautiful nebulous structures located in the constellation Cygnus (The Swan). Around 10,000 years ago, a dying star, roughly twenty times as massive as the Sun, exploded in its final phase of life: supernova. The wispy reds and blues are leftover remnants of the supernova explosion. The left portion and right portion of this supernova remnant are known as the Eastern Veil and Western Veil. Somewhere between these two structures is the neutron star remains from the supernova explosion, but it is probably way to small to resolve in my image. I made posts on the Eastern/Western veil nebula back in 2020. Since they were separate images, and did not include the space in between, they don't capture how massive the entire structure really is. Eve

Saturn: Taken under Michigan skies August 2nd, 2021 Saturn hit opposition on August 2nd, 2021. Opposition is the instance where an outer planet aligns along a line with both the Earth and the Sun. This also means it is at its closest distance to Earth, making it appear its brightest as well as its largest when observed from Earth. Top all that off with a perfectly clear sky forecast! On numerous occasions the clear sky forecasts will be at odds with the national whether cloud forecast. Some occasions, the clear sky forecast will be right while other occasions the national whether cloud forecast is right; so there is always a chance that clouds ruin your parade. Last night (Aug. 2nd) the cloud forecast predicted correctly and the clouds ended up blocking my view of the planets for about 90% of the night. I decided to wait it out since I was all setup but the clouds persisted. However, I did manage