Also cataloged as LBN 437, this elegant cloud of glowing gas and dust is part of a large molecular complex in the constellation Lacerta. Often referred to as the “Veil of Lacerta” due to its flowing, gossamer-like appearance, the nebula spans several light years and is composed primarily of hydrogen alpha emission, shown here in rich red tones. Wispy dark filaments and faint reflection components weave through the field, adding depth to the otherwise diffuse structure.

LBN 437 lies at the edge of the Lacerta OB1 association, a region populated by young, hot stars that illuminate the surrounding interstellar medium. Though faint and often overlooked, this nebula rewards long exposures with a surprisingly intricate interplay of ionized gas and dark dust, delicately sculpted by stellar winds and radiation.

Located approximately 5,000 light years away in the constellation Sagittarius, the Trifid Nebula (M20) is a rare combination of three distinct nebula types in one region: emission (red), reflection (blue), and dark (silhouetted against the background glow). The striking red glow comes from ionized hydrogen gas energized by ultraviolet radiation from young, massive stars, while the blue haze reflects starlight off interstellar dust.

The nebula's signature dark lanes appear to divide it into three lobes, giving it the name "Trifid." These dust structures are part of active star-forming regions where gravity and turbulence shape dense clouds. This natural color image beautifully captures the balance between structure and chaos in one of the galaxy’s most photogenic nurseries.

RCW 58 is a dramatic emission nebula formed by the powerful stellar winds of the Wolf-Rayet star WR 4, located roughly 13,000 light years away in the constellation Carina. These winds expel the star’s outer layers into surrounding space, carving out the distinctive filamentary bubble seen in this image. The glowing gases are primarily hydrogen and oxygen, energized by intense ultraviolet radiation from the central star.

Captured using a personal telescope setup and the ZWO ASI 6200MM camera, this image represents 156 hours of exposure in a modified HOO-RVB palette. The red filaments trace ionized hydrogen, while the blue highlights areas of doubly ionized oxygen. Wolf-Rayet nebulae like RCW 58 are short-lived stages in the evolution of massive stars, providing a glimpse into the final, unstable phases before a potential supernova.

A dramatic evolution of a massive solar prominence that erupted from the Sun’s limb. Towering over 300,000 kilometers above the chromosphere, this colossal plasma structure offered a vivid display of solar activity and dynamic magnetic forces at work.

The image sequence documents three key stages of the event:

• June 28, 05:47 UTC – The prominence appeared stable, resembling a massive, tree-like arch rising from the solar surface.

• June 29, 06:02 UTC – The structure began to stretch and detach, signaling the start of an outbound eruption.

• June 29, 16:56 UTC – The prominence had fully lifted away from the Sun, transforming into a faint, wispy cloud as it rapidly disintegrated and expanded into the heliosphere.

This event likely culminated in a Coronal Mass Ejection (CME), sending charged particles into space at incredible speeds. It's a powerful reminder of the Sun’s ever-changing, dynamic nature.

This glowing ribbon of hydrogen gas is LBN 331, a faint emission nebula in the constellation Cygnus. The brilliant star near the center is 32 Cygni, a wide binary system made up of a hot B-type star and a cooler K-type supergiant. The system lies between 1,100 and 1,174 light years away and is silhouetted dramatically against the glowing strands of ionized gas.

The bright arcs are part of a vast network of nebulosity in the Cygnus region, shaped by stellar winds and radiation from massive stars. Hydrogen-alpha emission gives the nebula its vivid red color. This field is a small section of the expansive Cygnus Loop, an area filled with remnants of ancient supernovae and glowing filaments. The contrast between the sharp starlight of 32 Cygni and the delicate arcs of interstellar gas highlights the richness of the Milky Way’s summer sky.

A newly revealed bow shock surrounds LS Pegasi, a well-studied cataclysmic variable (CV) star in the constellation Pegasus. This reddish arc of emission was discovered through deep imaging and analysis of archival H-alpha and OIII data, confirming early suspicions from wide-field sky surveys. The emission structure seen here is a bow shock — a shell of material shaped by the motion of the star through the interstellar medium.

LS Pegasi has been known as a variable star since 1935, but it wasn’t until 1988 that it was classified as a CV, a system where a white dwarf accretes matter from a companion. In August 2020, amateur astronomer Dana Patchick detected subtle nebulosity around LS Pegasi using VTSS and SHASSA data, leading to targeted observations and the confirmation of this shock feature. The discovery contributes to a growing list of CVs with extended emission structures, suggesting mass-loss events or wind interactions that persist on large scales.

Venus, often called Earth's sister planet, is perpetually shrouded in a dense atmosphere of carbon dioxide and sulfuric acid clouds. This striking false-color image, captured from Cremona, Italy, reveals its thick cloud layers using infrared and ultraviolet filters. The result shows intricate atmospheric features normally hidden from optical telescopes. Subtle cloud structures become visible here due to the blending of two separate spectral ranges: deep infrared, which penetrates lower cloud levels, and ultraviolet, which highlights high-altitude cloud tops.

The image was acquired on June 26, 2025, using a 255 mm F/20 Maksutov Rumak telescope and a ZWO ASI 462 Mono camera. Frames were captured with IR-pass and UV-pass filters, stacking 28,000 out of 35,000 frames in infrared at 250 fps and 3,000 out of 5,000 in ultraviolet at 30 fps. The final composition is presented in IR-IR-UV channels to simulate a color view of Venus's invisible atmosphere.

H2-91 is especially remarkable in the OIII emission line, which reveals a sinuous, glowing arc tracing the shock front where the expanding blast wave from the supernova continues to plow through the interstellar medium. The ionized oxygen, energized by the remnant’s shock, emits strongly in blue-green light, producing the elegant structure reminiscent of a cascading cosmic waterfall—hence the nickname “The OIII Falls.”
Capturing this image has required 19h of exposure in Ha and OIII filters, plus 1.5h of exposure in R, G and B filters for the stars. Total exposure time has been about 40h.

The Andromeda Galaxy, also known as M31, is our nearest large galactic neighbor, lying about 2.5 million light-years away in the constellation Andromeda. This striking portrait combines broadband LRGB data with Hydrogen-Alpha (Ha) to reveal not just the classic sweeping spiral structure but also the delicate reddish glow of HII regions scattered throughout the galaxy’s disk. These Ha regions highlight zones of active star formation, most prominent in the spiral arms, where cold gas and dust collapse into new stars.

Data for this image were collected from two sites in Poland: Kraków and Lublin, under varying conditions that required careful calibration and integration. The total exposure time amounts to approximately 80 hours, allowing for an exceptionally clean and detailed view of both faint outer structure and fine internal features. The small elliptical galaxy M32 can be seen just above the bright core of M31, while the larger, fuzzier companion M110 lies below the disk, slightly offset.

The Lagoon Nebula (M8) and the Trifid Nebula (M20) are two of the most photogenic star-forming regions in the constellation Sagittarius. Separated by less than two degrees on the sky, they lie roughly 4,100 and 5,200 light-years away, respectively. M8 dominates the lower half of the frame, showcasing turbulent clouds of ionized gas, reflection nebulae, and embedded star clusters. At the top, M20 features a rare combination of emission, reflection, and dark nebulae, intersected by thick dust lanes.

This rendition combines LRGB data with narrowband emission mapped to a Foraxx-inspired palette, enhancing the contrast between ionized hydrogen, oxygen, and sulfur. The resulting image highlights the dynamic interplay of radiation and stellar winds shaping these regions, where stars are actively forming within dense molecular clouds.

Amid a rich starfield, faint red and teal wisps of ionized gas swirl around ASASSN-19ds, a cataclysmic variable (CV) star centered between two brighter foreground stars. This rare nebulosity, revealed through over 55 hours of deep exposure, marks an extraordinary discovery. CVs seldom show extended emission, making this a significant find. The intricate structure and color separation suggest a mix of ionized hydrogen (Hα, red) and oxygen (OIII, teal), hinting at complex interactions from past outbursts or surrounding interstellar material.

The image was part of a collaboration between Daniel Stern, Jon Talbot, and Dana Patchick, and the discovery was formally analyzed in a recent academic paper by Dr. Howard Bond (arXiv:2506.11306). Taken from Chile with a CDK-24 telescope, the data reveal subtle filaments and diffuse structures often missed in shorter exposures. This observation adds a rare specimen to the catalog of nebulae associated with CVs and contributes valuable insight into the life cycles of these energetic binary systems.

The Trifid Nebula, also known as M20, is a rare combination of emission, reflection, and dark nebulae located in the constellation Sagittarius. This deep view reveals the intricate structure of the nebula, including the red glow of ionized hydrogen gas (Hα), the bluish reflection from nearby starlight, and the dense dust lanes that divide its bright core into three lobes. These dust lanes are responsible for the nebula’s common name, derived from the Latin word trifidus, meaning "divided into three lobes."

Captured with a total of 81 hours of exposure in Hα, RGB, and [OIII] filters, this image showcases both the rich star field of the Milky Way and the dynamic processes at play in this active star-forming region. Newborn stars within the nebula irradiate the surrounding gas and dust, triggering additional waves of star formation and sculpting the surrounding material into dramatic shapes.

Discovered in 2011 by French amateur astronomer Nicolas Outters, Ou4, nicknamed the Giant Squid Nebula, is a remarkably faint bipolar outflow structure located in the constellation Cepheus. Stretching across more than two degrees of sky, its ghostly blue form resembles a deep-sea squid drifting through space. The nebula is likely powered by the triple-star system HR 8119, located near the apparent center of the outflow.

Ou4 lies within the larger and brighter emission nebula Sh2-129, also known as the Flying Bat Nebula. The deep red background is dominated by ionized hydrogen (Hα) emission, contrasting starkly with the OIII-rich, oxygen-emitting outflow that defines Ou4’s structure. The nature of the Giant Squid remains under study, with hypotheses ranging from a planetary nebula to a massive stellar wind structure formed by high-energy interactions in the central system.

Located in the southern constellation Vela, NGC 3201 is a globular cluster approximately 16,300 light-years from Earth. This stellar system hosts hundreds of thousands of stars and is known for its unusually high radial velocity, suggesting a dynamic history within the Milky Way. Its relatively loose stellar concentration sets it apart from denser clusters like Omega Centauri.

Surrounding this ancient cluster is a surprising presence of faint H-alpha emission. Red hydrogen filaments thread across the field, likely unrelated to the cluster itself. Such emissions are rare in the vicinity of globular clusters, which typically contain little to no interstellar gas. The source of this emission remains unidentified but could be associated with galactic cirrus, an extended ionized structure, or even remnants of a past supernova in the line of sight.

The Blue Horsehead Nebula, cataloged as IC 4592, is a prominent reflection nebula located in the constellation Scorpius. Its distinct equine profile is sculpted from interstellar dust and gas reflecting starlight, primarily from the bright star Nu Scorpii near the "eye" of the horse. The blue hue results from dust grains scattering shorter wavelengths of visible light, similar to the way Earth's sky appears blue.

To the upper right lies another reflection nebula, IC 4601, surrounding a young B-type star. Both nebulae are embedded in the larger Scorpius-Ophiuchus star-forming complex and are part of the vast interstellar medium spanning hundreds of light-years. Dark nebulae streak the frame, absorbing and obscuring the light of stars behind them.

This deep, high-resolution image was captured from Yushan National Park in Taiwan, a Bortle Class 2 site offering excellent conditions for revealing faint galactic cirrus and the full extent of this ethereal nebular landscape.

Dominating the lower left of this frame is the brilliant blue star Pi Scorpii, embedded in a swath of glowing interstellar dust and gas. The surrounding nebula, cataloged as Sh2-1, is a striking reflection nebula located in the constellation Scorpius. Illuminated by the hot B-type star, the dust reflects and scatters starlight, creating the characteristic blue glow.

To the right of Pi Scorpii lies an extensive field of faintly glowing interstellar cirrus and dark molecular dust. These structures are part of a larger complex of nebulae threading through this region of the sky, including faint emission nebulae that appear red from ionized hydrogen. The bright star to the right-center is HD 147165 (also known as Sigma Scorpii), further contributing to the illumination of the nebular material.

This deep image was captured from Tivoli Southern Sky in the Khomas region of Namibia, one of the darkest observing sites on Earth. The pristine southern skies reveal not only the bright nebulae, but also faint, extended dust structures often lost to light pollution.

This high-resolution view captures the dynamic edge of the Sun in H-alpha light, revealing spectacular prominences arcing above the solar limb. These luminous plasma structures, suspended by magnetic fields, extend tens of thousands of kilometers into space. The twisting motion seen in the large prominence at upper right suggests a complex and active magnetic field structure.

Two active sunspot regions are also visible on the solar disk, their bright plages and dark cores surrounded by swirling chromospheric filaments. These sunspots are regions of intense magnetic activity and often serve as the source of solar flares and coronal mass ejections. The solar chromosphere, rendered here in rich detail, displays the textured pattern of spicules and fibrils that dominate its surface.

Captured on June 12, 2025, at 07:45 UTC using a dedicated solar telescope with an H-alpha filter, this image provides a dramatic look at our star's constantly changing face.

The Chamaeleon Complex is a rich star-forming region located approximately 450 to 650 light-years away in the southern constellation Chamaeleon. This wide-field image captures several of its most photogenic features, including dark molecular clouds, reflection nebulae, and young stellar objects. The region is known for its active stellar nurseries and intricate interstellar dust structures.

To the right lies the barred spiral galaxy NGC 3620, situated at a distance of 59 million light-years. Just left of it is IC 2631, a reflection nebula illuminated by the hot star HD 97300. To the left side of the field is Cederblad 111, which glows with a characteristic blue hue as starlight scatters off fine dust particles. Embedded within Ced 111 are Herbig-Haro objects HH 49 and HH 50—bright shock fronts formed by jets of gas from young stars interacting with surrounding material. Just beneath Ced 111 is the dark nebula GN 11.07.3, notable for its deep reddish tones and lack of a clearly identifiable illuminating source.

DR 28 is a planetary nebula candidate located in the constellation Andromeda. Discovered in May 2019 by amateur astronomer Marcel Drechsler, the object features a faint, structured emission profile with a central region dominated by [O III] surrounded by extended H-alpha. The central ionizing star is cataloged as Gaia DR3 450596357738685952 and is identified as a DAO white dwarf, a classification that includes both hydrogen and helium in its spectrum. DAO white dwarfs are very hot stars at the beginning of the white dwarf cooling sequence.

The main nebular structure measures approximately 8.5 by 5.5 arcminutes, with fainter emission extending to about 24 by 22 arcminutes. Deep exposures also reveal widespread H-alpha emission and significant molecular dust throughout the field. This image was captured using a 6-inch refractor and a monochrome CMOS camera over 62 hours from October to November 2024. High-resolution filters were used to isolate key emission lines and enhance faint structures. DR 28 remains an understudied object with very few known amateur images.