APOD 3.4: Orion's Cradle

The constellation Orion is full of Nebulas and giant stellar nurseries. This picture is a giant Hydrogen gas cloud with nurseries lying on the edges. The view spans 13 degrees across the middle of Orion, and is about 1500 light-years away. It is taken with a Hydrogen Alpha filter, thus the rich red color of the cloud that would have been undetectable otherwise.
Within the cloud you can see the Orion nebula (right of center) and to the left of center there is the Flame Nebula, Horsehead Nebula, and the three stars of the Belt.

On January 19 2007, I looked at the stars for about half an hour. The sky was clear with no moon visible. I first turned the telescope towards Orion and Betelgeuse. The telescope is an old one and it doesn't have a very high resolution, but I could definitely tell the color of the star-a red color. I also looked at Rigel and the three stars of the belt. The four stars had a blue or blue-white color to them. The left star of the belt, I forgot the name, had some fuzziness around it. I think it was the gasses of the nebulas near there. Also, while sweeping the telescope across the 'sword' of Orion I noticed a rather large fuzzy patch. Since there is a lot of nebulas in Orion I don't know if that was the Orion nebula or not. I also tried to look at Aldebaren, but it was almost straight over head and I couldn't get t he telescope to align with it. I then took a quick look at Polaris, but couldn't see its other star. Later, I noticed a bright star near Oron which I think was Sirius, I don't remember what color it was. I should have posted right after my observations but it was late and I was tierd. I took a look at Capella and "the kids" before I went inside.

Tonight-Jan. 20, I saw the waxing cresent moon near the north west horizon and a star or planet about 3 degrees nearby. I think it was Venus but as the sun had already set I am not positive. It look really cool though. The moon seemed big since it was near the horizon and the bright planet or star near there-I wish I could take a picture of it, but I was driving when I saw it.

APOD3.3 Comet McNaught from New STEREO Satellite

The brightest comet (magnitude -5) since comet Ikeya-Seki in 1965 (magnitude -7) has rounded the sun and is heading away from earth. People in the southern hemisphere can still see the comet and it has gotten so bright that you could see it in broad daylight if you block the sun with your hand.
This picture of the comet was taken by a new satellite that opened on January 11. The comet's ion tail is clearly seen being swept by the solar winds, while the coma is so bright that it saturates. In the picture the tail spans 7 degrees.

APOD 3.2: NGC 602 and Beyond

NGC 602 is a 5 million year star cluster that lies near the outer edge of the Small Magellanic Cloud, a satellite galaxy 200 thousand light-years away. The star cluster is undergoing in active star formations. Near the center of the picture, there are young hot stars being formed. The "maw" shape of the cloud is thought to have been caused by the radiation and winds emitted from the young stars, blowing the interstellar medium away as well as moving the stars away from the center.
To the left of the cloud you can see galaxy, this is only one out of many background galaxies that is in the picture. Many of these galaxies lie hundreds of millions of light-years away from the cluster. The Cluster itself spans 200 light-years.

APOD 3.1-Alnitak, Alnilam, Mintaka

The three names of this Apod are the three stars in the belt of Orion. The stars are in order in the picture starting left to right diagonally. The stars are all blue supergiants and are more massive and hotter than our sun. All three are about 20 times as massive and thousands of times brighter than the sun. Alnitak alone is 35,000 times brighter with a surface temp of 60,000F-compared to 8,000K of the sun's temp. Luckily for Earth the stars are 1500 light years away. Earth would have to be 6 times the distance of Pluto for life to exist.
This region of Orion is also full of nebulas. To the bottom of Alnitak you can see the famous Horsehead Nebula and to the top is the Flame Nebula. The Orion Nebula is located off at the bottom of the view. It covers 4.4x3.5 degrees of the sky.