Deep Sky Objects and Comets
72Deep sky objects are astronomical objects that are beyond our solar system. It is not possible to view these objects with naked eye but some of the brightest objects can be seen with a small telescope or even with amateur binoculars. Some of the objects can’t be located with small optical telescope so in that case you need to get a large aperture telescope.
If you’re interested in viewing these deep sky objects then you need to select a darker place and a large telescope. Telescope with large aperture and light pollution filters can be used to increase the clarity.
List of Deep Sky Objects:
Nebulae, Clusters, Stars, Comets and Galaxies are included in the list
of deep sky objects. There are few more objects that can be listed in deep sky object list but for beginners in astronomy we'll stick with this list :
- Clusters
- Galaxies
- Comets
- Nebulae
- Stars
Clusters - Clusters are defined as dense grouping of stars. Clusters are divided into two types : Open cluster and Globular cluster. Open clusters contain a small number of relatively young stars. It’s possible to scan hundreds of open clusters in a milky way. Small telescope will help you view few open clusters. Globular clusters contain large number of stars (possibly millions stars). Globular cluster are comprised of young stars at millions of years old to older stars are at billions of years old. In the milky there are 150 known clusters while Andromeda galaxy contains more than 500 clusters. Some elliptical galaxies contain more than 1000 clusters in it.
Galaxies - Galaxies are consists of million stars which are in a group because of gravitational attraction. Some of the galaxies are classified based on their shape while some galaxies which are not in particular shape are classified under “irregular galaxies”. Based on shape galaxies are classified as : Spiral Galaxies and Elliptical Galaxies. Spiral galaxies have spiral arms formed by group of stars and interstellar matter. Some spiral galaxies have one open arm and some galaxies have two arms. Two arm spiral galaxies are called as barred spiral galaxy, our own milky way galaxy is classified under this type. Elliptical galaxies are in elliptical shape with no spiral arms which contains thousands of stars gravitating at the center. Irregular galaxies have irregular shape unlike elliptical and spiral galaxies.
Comets
Comets are interesting objects to watch as they travel across the sky. They’ve bright nuclei which ranges from 100 meters to more than 40 km and their tail contains dust and is longer depending on the size of comet. Some comets travel across galaxies and colloid with planet or gets vanished in some stars while some comets can be easily spotted after certain time interval.
Some interesting Comets are : Halley-Boop Comet, Encke's Comet, Biela's Comet.
Nebulae - Nebulae are formed from large gas and dust clouds. They’re classified based on emission and absorption properties. Emission nebulae emit certain amount of light while dark nebulae absorbs the light. Diffuse nebulae are formed when stars inside nebulae are hot and emit visible radiation. Supernova remnant is formed when there is explosion of stars and that generate a cloud of matter with nebula-like appearance.
Planetary nebulae are formed when star dies and forms sphere of gas which becomes visible because of radiation from central star in cluster. It gives appearance like planet if you view it with telescope.
Stars - Distant stars often appear like dot in multiple color or simply red or whitish dot. This creates not much of interest to any beginner astronomer or kids with telescope. Some advanced type of telescopes allow you to magnify to let you view double stars and variable stars. Double star when viewed in telescope appear like pair of stars attached to each other. Variable stars change their brightness depending on physical changes or because of eclipse or star rotation effects.
Most of the objects are not visible thorough naked eye or even with small telescope. So in this case it is better to upgrade your telescope and accessories if you’re interested in viewing these objects.
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P.S. I noticed you haven't put your referral tracker in your links. It's well worth doing because I've had 4 or 5 signups this week already since I started putting mine in for every link to another hub. Just something to think about! You never know you might get a very successful writer sign up under you. :)
Good point susana,I didn't paid much attention to it. I'm going to update my hubs now :)
Susana is right .. the images are amazing! Great job . .you have me totally addicted:)
Great pictures.. Where did you get them all.. interesting hub and interesting topic as well... Sky has always been a matter of attarction to me.. It has so many secrets that one cannot unfold them at a time and even in years... nice hub..
Wow, your pictures are great. Your hub is well written and informative. Our kids love space, so we watch a lot of science programs about deep space. Thanks for taking the time to write.
Namaste
have you ever seen the "eye of God"? I mean, in a picture..its pretty cool. I have wanted a telescope for as long as I can remeber, this is away cool hub!
Justine, Eye of god is Helix Nebula. I'll write hub on it later. :)
SWEET!!!!! Im glad you knew the real name. I think its pretty cool.
I've been an amateur astronomer most of my life, since before Sputnik. ;-) On the picture selection, just one word: "Wow!"
I especially like the "nebulae" and "stars" pix. As an artist, they're pretty cool.
I don't mean to be too picky, but I noticed an error in your article. You said, "It is not possible to view these objects with naked eye." Now, it's obvious that stars can be viewed. Personally, I've seen at least one comet with the naked eye. I've even seen the Andromeda galaxy from Los Angeles, though it was very difficult with the city lights (I could see the hub and part of the disk as a fuzzy patch). My eyes were much better then. And there are several naked eye clusters (Praesepe, Hyades, Pleiades and Coma, to name a few). Also, the Orion nebula is visible to the naked eye, though of course not with any detail.
Most definitions of "galaxy" that I've seen define it as having between 10 million and 1 trillion stars. That's far more than mere "thousands." In fact, some globular clusters have millions of stars.
I can tell you're passionate about the subject and I'm glad you're writing about it. :)
This is a topic that I really like, unfortunately I know very little, so thanks for having written about it! Thanks also for the beautiful picture selection, it's great!
Susana S Level 2 Commenter 2 years ago
This is great skyfire - I love learning about the universe and you've got some fab images here as well. Good job!