Vermont Astronomical Society

10/13/2026

The Tulip Nebula and Cygnus X-1
This is the Tulip Nebula, a star forming and ionization area which looks a bit like a tulip, (including the black stamens). I've always liked this pretty nebula. In this fairly deep view, you can see how it sits within hydrogen and dust clouds with the glow created by the stellar wind from the hot O-type super giant star HD 227018
The other area of interest ( especially to fans of the Canadian prog-rock band Rush) is Cygnus X-1
Cygnus X-1 is the most powerful source of X-rays in the nearby milky way, BTW first discoverd from a ballon in the upper atmosphere, and these x-rays are produced by the immense heat produced in the accretion disk surrounding a black hole. So, Cygnus X-1 is a black hole.
In an image like this, (in the visual spectrum) we can't see the black hole; it's tiny ( a few hundred miles across), but we can clearly see its effects on the surrounding interstellar medium.
Seen just in front of the "Tulip" is an arc, ( shown here in a blue color); this is a bow shock, similar principle of a ship sailing through the ocean pushing aside the water. In this case, the rapidly spinning accretion disk is pushing out a jet of stellar material at 90 degrees to the direction of rotation and pushing aside (and ionizing) the gas it encounters in the ISM.
It's a very cool and interesting object: The black hole is in a rapid orbit with giant star HD HDE 226868 which can be seen in this image. They orbit their center of mass very rapidly with one orbit taking 5.6 days, they are separated by about 20% of the distance the earth is from the sun !
Measurements indicate that the super-giant star is about 40 solar masses, and the black hole itself is around 18 solar masses. It's now thought that the black hole is rotating at a speed of 800 revolutions per second!
This is a modified HOO image using a custom pixel math expression to combine the Hydrogen and Oxygen data in a way that I find aesthetically pleasing, plus a blended SOO image combining Sulfur and Oxygen for the bluish ionization at the core of the Tulip
Shot from Animas , NM over many nights over the last few months with terrible weather conditions in the area prevailing for months.
I hope that you like it.
Image and words Credit: Richard Whitehead, Treasurer, VAS

10/09/2026

Passing this along…

Inside the escalating military struggle to control space and the satellites we rely on.

10/09/2026

On last weekend's event from one of our VAS members:

Check our calendar here for events! https://vtastro.org/calendar/

From ~ Maura Kelley, Hinesburg, VT

Last Saturday night, our club, Vermont Astronomical Society put on a Stargazing Event at our observatory where we were delighted to have students from the UVM Space Club there. It was so refreshing to talk with these wonderful young people!

One young man told me that he had never, ever, seen the night sky with so many stars in his entire life! (He was from Boston, as I recall.) It was such a pleasure answering all of their questions.

Besides looking into deep space through our large telescopes, they noticed I was taking pictures with my camera. They were so interested and very excited to see the results of a single 15-second shot (below). I explained my simple and lightweight tracking tripod, and encouraged them to try it too. One young man showed me a photo he had taken.

I find that this is a niche in our stargazing events ~ something different for them to see.. I’m certainty not as knowledgeable as our other members, but I find that people are highly curious as to how to begin to try themselves to capture the night sky in an image. (I miss being a teacher!)

Here is a 15-second snapshot I showed them from my camera’s LED screen of the Lagoon and Trifid nebulae ~

10/08/2026

NOAA has issued a G2 geomagnetic storm watch for Oct. 9 as the CME races toward Earth, potentially boosting the northern lights as low as Idaho and New York.

10/07/2026

From our VAS member:

From Maura Kelley in Hinesburg, VT ~

Here is an area of space that I traveled upon while searching for another astrophotography target while in NM. Most of the fun is finding other surprising and interesting areas of space to image!

These are 'streams and pools' of dark nebulae close to the Scorpius constellation in a star-rich area of the Milky Way. In the 'Comment' section, I've posted the location. The nearest (NGC) catalogued object is NGC 6480. However, dark nebulae have their own catalogue: Lynds' Catalogue of Dark Nebulae (LDN). Dark nebulae or absorption nebulae are clouds of gas and dust dense enough to obscure and block light from background stars. I've annotated this image in 'Comment' section as well.

Searching the (clear & dark) night sky never gets boring ✨ 💛
(29 minutes of exposure time, consisting of 116 15-sec images)

10/06/2026

It's World Space Week (WSW), the largest annual space event on Earth, celebrated globally from October 4 to October 10 every year to honor the contributions of space science and technology to human life.
https://esawebb.org/news/archive/year/2026/
(photo 10/6/26 from the Webb telescope)

09/15/2026

Image taken by our member and treasurer, Richard Whitehead
The Horsehead and Flame Nebulae
https://www.facebook.com/share/p/19Z52FFtXV/

Horsehead and Flame Nebulas
Richard Whitehead
New Mexico, USA

09/14/2026

From our VAS member:

08/27/2026

With a view 100 times larger than Hubble, the observatory will survey the cosmos for distant worlds and clues to dark energy

08/27/2026

Here's where the 96% partial lunar eclipse will be visible from on Earth.