UCI Observatory Photos

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The Observatory

• The Observatory during the daytime looking toward the NorthEast (January, 2007, Chris Muscatello)
  
• The Observatory during an afternoon astronomy oureach event with children from a local school.
  
• Outside the Dome during Sunset (October 2005, Brian Bautista, "New University" photographer)
• Outside the Dome during Nighttime (October 2005, Brian Bautista, "New University" photographer)
• In this 7 minute-long exposure, you can see the trails made by the brightest stars in the sky due to the Earth's rotation. Note that the colors of the stars are different. This is due to the fact that stars have different surface temperatures, hence they emit different amounts of light at each color of the spectrum. The bluest stars are the hottest, and the orange stars are the coolest. The blue beam of light shining up from the center of the horizon is light pollution from the Irvine Spectrum.
  
• Outside the Dome during Daytime (circa 1998)
• Inside the Dome

The Telescope

• The 24" Telescope
• The 24" Telescope at Night

Photos from Visitor Night in May, 2002

• Children with a small telescope
• A student using one of the larger telescopes

Photos from Visitor Nights during "100 Hours of Astronomy" in April to celebrate 2009, the International Year of Astronomy

• Visitor Night/100 Hours 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).

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Last updated on Feb 9, 2007
http://www.physics.uci.edu/~observat/photolist.html