Back when the Moon was not full, a week or two ago, I made the little RedCat telescope stare at a black on black patch of sky for some hours in visible light - so only the filter that removes UV and IR light.

The patch is in Puppis and it actually contains a lot of gas and dust. It’s not glowing pink in the same way that star forming regions are, but is just illuminated by nearby stars.

The dust nodules you see here are called Cometary Globules. Mostly because of their shape - a dense head with a long tail. This is where new stars are forming in dense clouds and nearby hot stars are evaporating away those clouds from the outside.

On the right, CG4 - also known as the hand of god - is already being blown apart by the wind of stars that formed inside it. The remaining shape is like a hand reaching out to grab the galaxy that coincidentally sits just above it.

I’ve included a “star-less” version of the image to make the dust and galaxies a bit easier to see.

#space #astrophotography #astrodon

Our pale blue dot as seen from the Artemis II mission

📷 :https://www.nasa.gov/blogs/missions/2026/04/02/artemis-ii-flight-update-perigee-raise-burn-complete/

#artemis #Artemis2 #Artemis_II #Orion #Astrophotography #space #science #astronomy #Earth #astroDon #NASA