Deutsche Fassung.
Wendelstein Observatory astronomical image gallery
This is a gallery of images using
the CCD Camera MONICA at the
80cm telescope.
Clusters and Galaxies:
Globular Cluster M13
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Spiralgalaxy M101
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Spiralgalaxy NGC 891
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Perseus galaxy cluster
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| A Globular Cluster is a globular shaped accumulation
of hundred thousand to a few million stars. The diameter of such a
cluster can reach up to 500 lightyears. Globular Cluster are one of
the oldest formations in the milky way. They are formed more than
10 billion years ago as our milky way was not yet discus shaped
like today. M 13 is a typical representative of its class and
20000 lightyears away from earth. |
This star system is pretty close, only 15 million
lightyears away and visible as a round nebulosity with a pair of
binoculars. It's spiral arms are showing many clouds of hydrogen
gas. Still today new stars are formed from such gas clouds. Among
these are very massive and bright stars. Due to their
brightness they have a short live. Finally they loose an essential part of
their mass in a gigantic supernova explosion.
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This galaxy is seen edge on from our earth. This
means we look exactly at it's galactic plane. As a result we
observe a lane of interstellar dust which divides the brightness
if this system in two parts. The clouds of this starlight
absorbing dust lane have an extension of a few 300
lightyears. This image is a composite of 3 single images taken
through different color filters with exposure times of
respectively a few minutes.
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(Abell 426): Each of these diffuse emerging objects
is a galaxy. All together form the Perseus Galaxy Cluster - one of
the closest known crowds of galaxies. We see these objects
through a foreground of faint stars of our milky way. The light needs 300 million
years to reach us from this distant region of the
universe. Thus we see galaxies how they looked at a time when
dinosaurs ruled the earth.
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Sombrero Galaxy M104
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UFO Galaxy NGC2683
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M65 (NGC3623)
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Stephan's Quintet
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| The Sombrero Nebula (NGC 4594) is a spiral galaxy
about 40 million lightyears away from our home galaxy, the
Milky Way. M104 was the first known galaxy which departs from
us (according to its redshift) with more than 1000 km per
second. This fact decided a decades lasting struggle: "Spiral
Nebulae" are not part of the Milky Way, they are systems of billions of stars for their own.
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This spiral galaxy is nicknamed "UFO" (due to
obvious reasons). It is 16 million lightyears away from us and
a typical representative of its kind: It has a spherical
concentration of stars in its center, young hot stars and
light absorbing dust in its disk.
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Together with M 66 (NGC 3627) and NGC 3628 this
galaxy belongs to the so called Leo Triplet, a group of
galaxies in a distance of 35 million lightyears. Clearly one
can identify dust and star forming regions in the spiral arms,
winding around the central "bulge" of old stars.
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Stephan's Quintet is a small group of five
galaxies belonging together. These galaxies are connected to
each other with visible matter.
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M 81
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NGC 3642
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NGC 3726
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| Image of the spiral galaxy Messier 81
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spiral galaxy |
spiral galaxy |
Nebulae:
Horsehead Nebula B 72
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Owl Nebula M97
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Crab Nebula M1
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Eagle Nebula M16
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| The famous Horse Head Nebula in Orion is a cloud
of dust which absorbes the light of the emission gas cloud IC
434. The head is 2 lightyears wide and is situated 1600 lightyears
away.
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The Planetary Nebula M97: Planetary Nebulae are not connected in any way to planets. At the end
of its live a solar like star rejects a part of its mass in a
expanding shell of gas. A little
but hot (100000 degrees) star remains in the center, a White Dwarf. Its ultraviolet
light illuminates the gaseous shell.
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The Crab Nebula Messier 1 in the constellation of
Taurus is a supernova remnant whose light reached the earth
after a 6500 years voyage in july 1054 and therefore was
actually visible a few weeks during daytime. Inside this explosion cloud, which is 7 lightyears in diameter we find a neutron star, a
pulsar rotating with 30 rps.
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This gaseous nebula is a birthplace of stars and
planetary systems. It is situated 6000 lightyears away from earth and
has an expansion of 20 lightyears. Some of the newborn stars
shine 100000 times brighter than our sun.
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Dumbbell Nebula M27
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Cat Eye Nebula NGC 6543
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Omega Nebula M17
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Omega Nebula M17
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| Dumbbell Nebula M27 is also a
Planetary Nebula but located closer and therefore appears slightly
larger and more detailed.
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The so called Cats Eye Nebula, a processed
summary of five 60 second images taken with a 5 megapixel Casio
digicam.
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This older image finally has been photographed
with a 35 mm reflex camera also at the primary focus of the 32
inch telescope. (focal length is 10 metres)
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This image is a three color composit of MONICA b-,r-,i-, band images.
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Objects in the Solar System:
The Moon
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... closing in
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Saturn
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Mars
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| The Moon seen through the finderscope at the 80 cm
telescope. The image was made with a commercial camcorder.
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Nice images of the moon can be taken with MONICA using a blue filter. You can identify parts of
the Mare Imbrium the craters Copernicus, Eratosthenes and
Archimedes in this image.
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Saturn is not adjusted to the field-of-view of MONICA but is a perfect target for "lucky" imaging with a camcorder.
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Mars dominated the summer sky 2003. This image was produced by coadding pictures of the 80 cm telescope also applying "lucky" imaging.
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Comet Neat
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Comet Neat
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Comet 17P/Holmes
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Comet 17P/Holmes
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| Observations with our 80 cm telescope: three color
composite image of the Comet Neat, observed in Spring 2004
with the MONICA CCD camera.
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Observations with 80 cm telescope: Rainbow color
image of the Comet Neat, observed in Spring 2004 with MONICA.
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Observations of Comet 17P/Holmes in B band on
28/10/2007. Contours in green (7x7 arcmin).
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Rainbow color image. You can see 2
brightness maxima: Has the comet broken in two?
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Minor planet 22348 Schmeidler
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| Minor planet 22348 Schmeidler, observed with an
R-band filter and the CCD camera MONICA at the Wendelstein 80 cm
telescope on Dec. 27, 2007, between 05:28 and 05:48 UT. The minor planet was discovered at Tautenburg Observatory. The name was suggestes by the first discoverer. Felix Schmeidler (b. 1920), a professor at Munich University, has for many decades been an astronomer at the Munich Observatory. He is well known for his valuable contributions to classical astronomy and the history of astronomy.
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The Supernova 2007gr in NGC 1058
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Observation (26/8/2007) of a very bright supernova in the spiral galaxy NGC 1058
(Camera MONICA, Image processing Stefan Taubenberger,
Max-Planck-Institut for astrophysics, Garching).
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link to all actual supernovae!
The Supernova 2007af in NGC 5584
Image of the supernova SN2007af on 11th April observed with the MONICA CCD camera.
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| NGC 5584 mit SN 2006af am 11. April 2007 |
The Supernova 2006X in Messier 100
In late Winter 2006, again a bright Supernova occured, this time in
galaxy M100. This galaxy ist also of interest for our black hole
monitoring program, thus there was an opportunity to take
exposures of this galaxy with and without supernova. The three
colour composite was created on March 1st, the
comparative image was taken in v-filter on January 15th.
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| M100 with SN 2002X, 2006 March 1st, taken in B,
V and R filter, processed with Registax and Gimp.
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For comparison: M100, black and white image without
supernova.
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The Supernova 2005cs in Messier 51
The Supernova 2005cs was discovered on June 27th
2005. This galaxy is also part of our present supermassive Black
Hole monitoring, thus there are images showing the galaxy with and
without Supernova. Unfortunately we had lousy weather during the
time of the first flash up of the Supernova and therefore have only few
frames of this event. The three colour composite showing here has
been created also during the praktical course.
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| M51 with SN 2002cs at September 1st 2005, taken
in B, V and R filter.
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Comparison: M51, black and white image without Supernova, done at
April 22nd 2005.
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The Supernova 2004et in NGC 6946
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On December 8th 2004 the galaxy NGC 6946
was taken in B-, V-, R- and I- Filter in the context of our
practical course at the 80 cm telescope. The exposure times
spread between 450 sec in R and 600 sec in B. The brightness
of the Supernova 2004et was about 13 mag at this point. This
MONICA shot was taken with active support from the
Mt. Wendelstein staff.
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The Supernova 2002ap in M74:
We observed the Supernova 2002ap in M74 from February 1st, 2002 until February 3rd. The colour
image combines best seeing images in UBVRI filters, the SN
still brightening in all colours. The smaller grey image shows the
region of interest in the R-band on September 4th 1999: There is no
progenitor brighter than R = 21.1 (3 sigma). The small visible
(extended) object close to the SN location is more than one arcsec
off.
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| SN 2002ap, UBVRI filters, Feb. 1st - 3rd
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Comparison: before and while SN going off
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5 filters lightcurve: + and * are literature values
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