UCI
Observatory Photos
The Observatory
The Telescope
Photos from Visitor Night in May, 2002
Photos from Visitor
Nights during "100 Hours of Astronomy" in April to celebrate 2009, the
International Year of Astronomy
Images Taken with the ST-8 CCD Camera
- M51/NGC
5194
This spiral galaxy is also know as the Whirlpool Galaxy. Its distance
from us is 33 million light years, and its total luminosity is 70
billion
times that of the Sun. This image was produced from 7-1 minute long
exposures
in the I-band filter (6/28/99).
- M3/NGC
5272
This is a Galactic globular cluster that contains approximately 300,000
stars in a region of space only 60 light years in diameter. Its
distance
from us is approximately 29,000 light years. This image was produced
from
4 - 1 minute long exposures in the I-band filter (6/28/99).
- Blue
Snowball Nebula
This planetary nebula is know as the Blue Snowball Nebula because it
appears blue to the eye when viewed with a small telescope. It is a
remnant
of a star that had died. During its death, the star expelled most of
its
outer layers in violent episodes of mass loss. The shells of gas shed
from
the star continue to slowly expand away from it, and at the center of
the
nebula is the remaining core of the star. Now that nuclear
reactions
can no longer occur in the core, it will slowly radiate away its energy
and cool to become a white dwarf. This image was produced from 6 - 1
minute
long exposures in the I-band filter, and the area imaged is 1.5
arcminutes
on a side (10/20/99).
Last updated on Feb 9, 2007
http://www.physics.uci.edu/~observat/photolist.html