Subaru Gallery

Images from the NHK Camera 2

NGC 2440 (Planetary Nebula)
Distance : 3600 Light years
Constellations : Puppis
Detail : In the center of this planetary nebula exists a white dwarf an extremely high surface temperature and a luminosity calculated to be 250 times greater than the sun.

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NGC 2371-2 (Planetary Nebula)
Distance : 3900 Light years
Constellations : Gemini
Detail : A planetary nebula forms when a star like our sun reaches the end of its life. In the final stages of its life, the star releases its out layers to create the nebula. What's left of the star afterwards is it hot core, called a white dwarf star, which will slowly cool over the eons.

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NGC 2239
Distance : 4600 Light years
Constellations : Monoceros
Detail : This is just one part of the extremely large Rosette nebula that covers an area in the sky as large as five full moons. Newborn stars are starting to emerge from this nebula and eventually hundreds of thousands of stars will be born from this stellar nursery.

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NGC 2261 :Hubble Variable Nebula (Emission Nebula)
Distance : 4900 Light years
Constellations : Monoceros
Detail : The source of the radiation causing this nebula to glow is a protostar located within the nebula. This protostar's light output varies over time, which causes a change in the brightness of the nebula over time as well.

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IC 444 (Emission Nebula)
Distance : 5000 Light years
Constellations : Gemini
Detail : The gas and dust of this nebula filter out the shorter (bluer) wavelengths leaving us with a red colored nebula. If this nebula were viewed form the side, it would look bluer and be a reflection nebula instead.

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NGC 6543 :Cat Eye Nebula (Planetary Nebula)
Distance : 6200 Light years
Constellations : Draco
Detail : It is thought that there are two stars at the center of this nebula. One of the stars died within the past 1000 years and ejected its gas to form the nebula. As the gas was being released, the gravity of the companion star distorted the structure of the nebula.

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M 1 :Crab Nebula
Distance : 7200 Light years
Constellations : Taurus
Detail : This nebula is remnant of a supernova first seen in 1054 AD. There is a pulsar in the center of this nebula emitting large amounts of X-ray and gamma ray radiation.

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NGC 2419 (Globular Cluster)
Distance : 30 x 104 Light years
Constellations : Lynx
Detail : This collection of old stars is gravitationally bound to each other forming a cluster.

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M 82 :Cigar Galaxy (Irregular Galaxy)
Distance : 1200 x 104 Light years
Constellations : Ursa Major
Detail : M82 is being distorted by the gravity of M81, a neighboring galaxy. One effect of this distortion is that the star formation rates in M82 an extremely high especially towards its center.

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M 64 :Black Eye Galaxy
Distance : 1600 x 104 Light years
Constellations : Coma Berenices
Detail : The inner region of this galaxy is rotating in the opposite direction of the outer region. It is thought that this is because this galaxy collided and merged with another galaxy.

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M 51 :Whirlpool Galaxy (Spiral Galaxy)
Distance : 2100 x 104 Light years
Constellations : Canes Venatici
Detail : These galaxies are in the process of colliding with each other, a process which will take a few billion years. The beginning stages of this collision are that the galaxies will gravitationally distort each other, giving the spiral arms a stretched look.

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M 63 :Sunflower Galaxy (Spiral Galaxy)
Distance : 2400 x 104 Light years
Constellations : Canes Venatici
Detail : According to the Hubble classification system, M63 is classified to a Sb type galaxy because its bulge is medium size. This galaxy has also flocculent arms.
[ Scientific Result ]

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NGC 4565 :Needle Galaxy (Spiral Galaxy)
Distance : 4500 x 104 Light years
Constellations : Coma Berenices
Detail : This spiral galaxy is seen from its edge on profile. The dark band across the galaxy is the disk of the galaxy where the spiral arms are found. The disk of the galaxy surrounds the brighter region in the center, which is called the nuclear bulge.

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NGC 2146 (Barred Spiral Galaxy)
Distance : 4560 x 104 Light years
Constellations : Ursa Major
Detail : This galaxy is being distorted by the gravity of a neighboring galaxy. The central region of this galaxy is an area of massive star formation and where many supernova explosions occur and emit material violently.

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M 104 :Sombrero Galaxy (Spiral Galaxy)
Distance : 4600 x 104 Light years
Constellations : Virgo
Detail : The dark belt crossing the center region is composed of huge amounts of gas and dust. There is a black hole in the center of this galaxy that is one billion times more massive than our sun.

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M 87 [Wide] (Elliptical Galaxy)
Distance : 5900 x 104 Light years
Constellations : Virgo
Detail : M87 is a huge elliptical galaxy located at the center of the Virgo cluster. There is a super massive black hole at its core, which is 2-3 billion times more massive than our sun.

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M 87 [Zoom] (Elliptical Galaxy)
Distance : 5900 x 104 Light years
Constellations : Virgo
Detail : There is a jet of gas being ejected from the center of M87 that can be seen around the 2:30 position in this image.

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NGC 4038 & 4039 (Interacting Galaxies)
Distance : 6300 x 104 Light years
Constellations : Corvus
Detail : These two galaxies collided 200 million years ago. Gravitational forces from the collision changed the structure and appearance of these galaxies to now look like insect antennae.

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Images from the NHK Camera

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