Hi,

I am offering another pair of  February images from the Blue Mountain Vista Observatory.

First, the California nebula, an H-alpha emission nebula, NGC1499, in Perseus. The hot blue O7.5III star at the bottom is the magnitude 4.0 Menkib (xi Persei). The mass of this star has been estimated at 40 M(sun). It is one of the very few visible stars in class O and is likely to be in its helium-burning phase, having exhausted its supply of hydrogen. It is likely to expire as a supernova some time in the next few million years.

Both Menkib and the nebula are about 1500 light years away. The nebula apparently is being energized by UV radiation from the nearby star.

http://www.physics.drexel.edu/~steinberg/astro/BMVO/2010-02/pair/california_neb-23x5min2.jpg

Please compare this image with the one shown in
http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap050310.html

The second image is that of the Hickson compact galaxy group HCG44 in Leo. The largest member of the group is 11th magnitude NGC3190, a disturbed edge-on spiral marked by a dark equatorial dust band. Just northeast (up and left) of NGC3190 is NGC3193, an 11th magnitude elliptical galaxy, while to the northwest lies the 13th magnitude NGC3187, an interesting distorted barred spiral.

Slightly further to the SW is 12th magnitude NGC3185, a barred spiral with a ring structure.

http://www.physics.drexel.edu/~steinberg/astro/BMVO/2010-02/pair/ngc3190-35x5min-ddp2.jpg

Finally, here is an animation of seven stretched stacks of 5 subexposures each of HCG44 showing a bevy of asteroids, mostly magnitude 17-18. (Wait for the large file to load.)

http://www.physics.drexel.edu/~steinberg/astro/BMVO/2010-02/pair/ngc3190-35x5min-ddp.gif

Cheers,
Dick

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Blue Mountain Vista Observatory  --  TeleVue NP101is f/5.4  --  MoonLite CFL stepper motor focuser -- Orion SSPro imager V1  --   Paramount ME

all acquisition and processing with MaxIm DL v5.07 -- 5 min subs unguided -- 2.95 arcsec/pixel -- north is up and east is left in all images