Deep-sky images captured from Edinburgh, Scotland with a Dwarf 3 smart telescope.
Cocoon Galaxy (NGC 4490)
NGC 4490 · 01 May 2026 · Edinburgh · 18m
NGC 4490 is a barred spiral galaxy in Canes Venatici around 25 million light-years away, currently in the midst of a close interaction with its smaller companion NGC 4485 — visible just to the north. The gravitational tug-of-war between the two has dramatically distorted NGC 4490, triggering intense starburst activity throughout the disc and producing a luminous, irregular silhouette that gives rise to its popular nickname. The interaction has also drawn out a faint tidal bridge of stars and gas connecting the two galaxies, detectable in deep exposures. NGC 4490 is one of the brightest irregular galaxies in the northern sky and a textbook example of a merger in progress.
The Moon
Luna · 01 May 2026 · Edinburgh · 1m
The Moon is Earth's only natural satellite and the brightest object in the night sky after the Sun, orbiting at a mean distance of around 384,400 km. Even with a 20-second integration, the wealth of surface detail on show is remarkable — ancient impact craters, highland plateaus, and the dark volcanic plains known as maria stretch across the nearside face we always see, locked to us by tidal forces over billions of years. The Moon formed approximately 4.5 billion years ago from debris ejected when a Mars-sized protoplanet — named Theia — struck the young Earth. It remains the only body beyond Earth that humans have set foot on, with twelve Apollo astronauts walking its surface between 1969 and 1972.
Leo Triplet (M65)
M65 · 30 Apr 2026 · Edinburgh · 16m
M65 (NGC 3623) is a spiral galaxy in Leo around 35 million light-years away and the brightest member of the Leo Triplet — a gravitationally bound group completed by M66 and the edge-on NGC 3628. Unlike its two companions, M65 has retained a remarkably undisturbed structure despite the group's long history of mutual interaction, with well-defined spiral arms, a prominent dust lane along its southern edge, and very little active star formation. Its relative tidiness makes it something of an outlier in a trio otherwise showing clear signs of gravitational disruption. All three members fit within a single degree of sky, making the Leo Triplet one of the finest galaxy group targets for modest apertures.
Whale Galaxy (C32 / NGC 4631)
C32 · 29 Apr 2026 · Edinburgh · 10m
NGC 4631 in Canes Venatici is an edge-on barred spiral galaxy about 25 million light-years away, whose elongated silhouette and bulging core give it an unmistakable resemblance to a swimming whale. Its irregular shape is the result of gravitational interactions with its smaller companion NGC 4627, visible just above it. The galaxy is also notable for its powerful starburst activity, driving a large halo of hot gas extending well beyond the disc — detectable in X-ray observations.
Hercules Cluster (M13)
M13 · 29 Apr 2026 · Edinburgh · 10m
M13 in Hercules is one of the finest globular clusters in the northern hemisphere, containing several hundred thousand stars packed into a sphere roughly 145 light-years across at a distance of about 25,100 light-years. Discovered by Edmond Halley in 1714, it is estimated to be around 11.65 billion years old — nearly as old as the universe itself. In 1974 the Arecibo message — humanity's first deliberate radio transmission to potential extraterrestrial intelligence — was directed toward M13.
Pinwheel Galaxy (M101)
M101 · 30 Apr 2026 · Edinburgh · 7h
M101 in Ursa Major is a grand-design face-on spiral galaxy about 20.9 million light-years away, spanning roughly 170,000 light-years — significantly larger than the Milky Way. Its beautifully symmetrical arms are laced with pink star-forming HII regions and dark dust lanes, making it one of the most photogenic spirals in the northern sky. The asymmetry of its arms is thought to result from past tidal interactions with the smaller companion galaxy NGC 5474, visible to the south. Discovered by Pierre Mechain in 1781, it has since hosted several recorded supernovae, the most recent of which — SN 2023ixf — was discovered in May 2023.
Splinter Galaxy (NGC 5906)
NGC 5906 · 29 Apr 2026 · Edinburgh · 39m
NGC 5906 is a nearly perfect edge-on spiral galaxy about 50 million light-years away in the constellation Draco. Viewed almost precisely along its equatorial plane, it presents a razor-thin profile bisected by a prominent dark dust lane that traces the full length of its disc. Its slim, elongated appearance — reminiscent of a wood splinter — gives rise to the popular nickname. The galaxy shows slight disc warping toward its outer edges, a telltale sign of past gravitational interactions with neighbouring galaxies.
Markarian's Chain
Virgo Cluster · 29 Apr 2026 · Edinburgh · 10m
Markarian's Chain is a sweeping arc of galaxies in the heart of the Virgo Cluster, named after the Armenian astrophysicist Benjamin Markarian who first noted the common proper motion of its members in the 1970s. The two brightest — the giant ellipticals M84 and M86 — anchor the western end, while the interacting pair NGC 4438 and NGC 4435 (known as The Eyes) lie to the east, their entwined halos distorted by mutual tidal forces. The Virgo Cluster contains over 1,300 member galaxies and its collective gravity is gradually pulling the Local Group toward it at several hundred kilometres per second.
Rose Cluster (M5)
M5 · 29 Apr 2026 · Edinburgh · 21m
M5 is one of the finest and oldest globular clusters in the northern sky, lying around 24,500 light-years away in the constellation Serpens. Estimated to be around 13 billion years old — nearly as old as the universe itself — it contains several hundred thousand stars packed into a sphere roughly 165 light-years across. At its core, stellar densities are so extreme that stars are separated by only fractions of a light-year. M5 is notable for its unusually large population of RR Lyrae variable stars, making it a key calibrator for the cosmic distance ladder.
Sol
Our Sun · 23 Apr 2026 · Edinburgh · 1m
Sol is our nearest star, a middle-aged G-type main-sequence star located a mere 8 light-minutes from Earth. This capture reveals several active sunspot groups crossing the solar disc — regions where intense magnetic field lines suppress convection, cooling the surface to around 3,500 K and making them appear dark against the surrounding photosphere at 5,500 K. Sunspots form in pairs of opposite magnetic polarity and are closely linked to solar flares and coronal mass ejections. At 4.6 billion years old, Sol is approximately halfway through its main-sequence lifetime and fuses around 600 million tonnes of hydrogen into helium every second.
Croc's Eye Galaxy (M94)
M94 · 23 Apr 2026 · Edinburgh · 10m
M94 in Canes Venatici is a spiral galaxy about 16 million light-years away, distinguished by an unusually bright and compact core surrounded by a ring of intense star formation — the source of its distinctive bull's-eye or crocodile-eye appearance. This starburst ring is thought to be driven by a density wave resonance in the disc rather than by a galaxy merger, making M94 a relatively rare example of a starburst ring galaxy with a quiet interaction history. Its outer disc extends well beyond the bright inner ring and is detectable only in deep exposures.
Sunflower Galaxy (M63)
M63 · 23 Apr 2026 · Edinburgh · 10m
M63 in Canes Venatici is a flocculent spiral galaxy around 29 million light-years away, its loosely wound arms fragmented into short, patchy star-forming knots rather than the grand sweeping arcs seen in galaxies like M51. This gives it a soft, textured appearance reminiscent of a sunflower head — the origin of its popular name. M63 is a member of the M51 galaxy group and shows a faint extended stellar halo in deep exposures, evidence of past minor mergers.
Polarissima Cluster (C1 / NGC 188)
C1 · 23 Apr 2026 · Edinburgh · 10m
NGC 188 — catalogued as C1, the Polarissima Cluster — is one of the oldest known open clusters in the Milky Way, estimated to be around 6.8 billion years old. It lies roughly 42,000 light-years from Earth in Cepheus, just 4 degrees from the north celestial pole, making it circumpolar from Edinburgh and accessible throughout the year. Its extreme age means nearly all its massive stars have long since died, leaving behind a population of evolved red giants, horizontal branch stars, and white dwarfs.
Ursa Minor Dwarf (UGC 9749)
UGC 9749 · 20 Apr 2026 · Edinburgh · 10m
The Ursa Minor Dwarf is one of the faintest and most diffuse satellite galaxies of the Milky Way, lying around 206,000 light-years away in the constellation Ursa Minor. Discovered by Albert Wilson in 1954 on photographic plates from the Palomar Sky Survey, it is a spheroidal dwarf galaxy with virtually no ongoing star formation and an ancient stellar population estimated at over 10 billion years old. Despite its faintness, it is one of the most dark-matter-dominated objects known — its stars move far too fast for the visible mass alone to hold them together.
Vacuum Cleaner Galaxy (M109)
M109 · 8 Feb 2026 · Edinburgh · 30m
M109 is a barred spiral galaxy in Ursa Major, approximately 83 million light-years away and catalogued by Pierre Mechain in 1781. Its distinctive elongated shape and asymmetric structure earned it the colloquial nickname Vacuum Cleaner Galaxy among amateur astronomers. At magnitude 9.8 it is one of the fainter Messier objects, requiring dark skies and moderate aperture to observe visually. The galaxy is part of the Ursa Major cluster and shows evidence of past gravitational interactions with neighbouring galaxies.
Andromeda Galaxy (M31)
M31 · 14 Sep 2025 · Edinburgh · 7h
The largest galaxy in the Local Group at 2.5 million light-years away, Andromeda is on a collision course with the Milky Way — the two will merge in roughly 4.5 billion years. At over 200,000 light-years across it is twice the diameter of our own galaxy, and on a dark night is visible to the naked eye as a faint smudge in the constellation Andromeda.
Triangulum Galaxy (M33)
M33 · 2 Nov 2025 · Edinburgh · 4h
The third-largest member of the Local Group at 2.7 million light-years distant, the Triangulum Galaxy is one of the most remote objects visible to the naked eye under perfect conditions. It is a pure spiral with no central bulge, and hosts one of the largest known HII regions — the giant star-forming cloud NGC 604, which dwarfs anything in the Milky Way.
Whirlpool Galaxy (M51)
M51 · 1 Nov 2025 · Edinburgh · 10h
Located 23 million light-years away in Canes Venatici, M51 was the first galaxy in which spiral structure was observed, by Lord Rosse in 1845. It is actively interacting with its smaller companion NGC 5195, whose gravitational influence is thought to be compressing gas in M51's spiral arms and triggering vigorous star formation throughout.
Bode's Galaxy (M81)
M81 · 22 Feb 2026 · Edinburgh · 4h
Discovered by Johann Elert Bode in 1774, M81 lies 12 million light-years away in Ursa Major and is one of the brightest galaxies in the night sky. Its tightly wound grand-design spiral arms are driven by an unusually massive central black hole weighing in at around 70 million solar masses — roughly 17 times heavier than the Milky Way's own Sagittarius A*.
Cigar Galaxy and Bode's Galaxy (M82 and M81)
M82 & M81 · 9 Feb 2026 · Edinburgh · 4h
M81 and M82 form a striking interacting pair 12 million light-years away. Gravitational disturbance from M81 has triggered a ferocious burst of star formation in M82, the Cigar Galaxy, at a rate roughly ten times that of the Milky Way. The resulting supernovae drive a dramatic superwind of hot gas that erupts perpendicular to M82's disc, visible here as diffuse red filaments of hydrogen.
Coddington's Nebula (IC 2574)
IC 2574 · 4 Apr 2026 · Edinburgh · 1h
Despite its misleading name, IC 2574 is a dwarf irregular galaxy roughly 4 million light-years away in Ursa Major, and a satellite of M81. Discovered by Edwin Coddington in 1898, it is riddled with enormous expanding HI supershells — holes blown into the interstellar medium by successive generations of supernovae — making it a key laboratory for studying triggered star formation.
Orion Nebula (M42)
M42 · 3 Oct 2025 · Edinburgh
At only 1,344 light-years away, the Orion Nebula is the closest large star-forming region to Earth and one of the most studied objects in the sky. The four hot young stars at its heart — the Trapezium cluster — were born roughly 300,000 years ago and their ultraviolet radiation sculpts the surrounding gas into glowing curtains and pillars. On a clear night it is just visible to the naked eye as the fuzzy middle star in Orion's sword.
Dumbbell Nebula (M27)
M27 · 14 Dec 2025 · Edinburgh
The Dumbbell was the first planetary nebula ever catalogued, discovered by Charles Messier in 1764. Lying 1,360 light-years away in Vulpecula, it is the ejected outer envelope of a dying Sun-like star whose exposed white dwarf core now illuminates the surrounding gas. At roughly 2.5 light-years across it is one of the largest and brightest planetary nebulae in the sky.
Lagoon Nebula (M8)
M8 · 14 Sep 2025 · Edinburgh
One of only two star-forming nebulae visible to the naked eye from mid-northern latitudes, the Lagoon lies 4,100 light-years away in Sagittarius. Its dark central lane — the lagoon — is a dust lane silhouetted against the glowing gas behind it. The young open cluster NGC 6530, embedded within, is only a few million years old and its hot stars are the primary source of ionising radiation lighting up the nebula.
Rosette Nebula (C49)
C49 · 1 Nov 2025 · Edinburgh
This vast emission nebula in Monoceros spans roughly 130 light-years and lies about 5,200 light-years away. The central open cluster NGC 2244 formed from this very gas cloud around 4 million years ago, and the intense stellar winds and radiation from its hot O-type stars have since carved a wide hole in the nebula's centre — giving it the characteristic rose shape.
Crescent Nebula (C27 / NGC 6888)
C27 · 10 Jan 2026 · Edinburgh
NGC 6888 in Cygnus is a Wolf-Rayet wind nebula — a shell of gas blown off and energised by the massive, rapidly evolving star WR 136 at its centre. Lying around 5,000 light-years away, the crescent shape is formed where the current fast stellar wind slams into slower material ejected during an earlier red giant phase. WR 136 will almost certainly end its life as a supernova within the next few hundred thousand years.
Jellyfish Nebula (IC 443)
IC 443 · 14 Sep 2025 · Edinburgh
IC 443 is a supernova remnant in Gemini, the expanding wreckage of a massive star that exploded between 3,000 and 30,000 years ago. It lies roughly 5,000 light-years away and its distinctive filamentary structure results from the blast wave colliding with clouds of interstellar gas at very different densities. A neutron star — the crushed stellar core left behind by the explosion — has been identified at its southern edge.
The Ghost of Cassiopeia (IC 63)
IC 63 · 18 Oct 2025 · Edinburgh
IC 63 is a small but striking reflection and emission nebula in Cassiopeia, only about 200 light-years away — making it one of the closest nebulae to Earth. It is being actively eroded by intense ultraviolet radiation from the nearby giant star Gamma Cassiopeiae, creating a glowing photodissociation region at its surface. The blue-white reflection component and the red hydrogen-alpha emission are both visible in longer exposures.
Heart Nebula (IC 805)
IC 805 · 8 Feb 2026 · Edinburgh
The Heart Nebula in Cassiopeia is a large emission nebula around 7,500 light-years away whose distinctive shape is carved by powerful stellar winds from the young open cluster Melotte 15 at its core. The central cluster contains several O-type stars, some of the hottest and most massive stars known, whose combined radiation ionises the surrounding hydrogen and sculpts the dramatic cavities and pillars visible in hydrogen-alpha imaging.
Heart and Soul Nebula (IC 805 and IC 1848)
IC 805 & IC 1848 · 11 Jan 2026 · Edinburgh
The Heart (IC 805) and Soul (IC 1848) nebulae form a vast star-forming complex in Cassiopeia spanning roughly 300 light-years and lying around 7,500 light-years away. Together they represent one of the most active regions of stellar nurseries visible from the northern hemisphere. Both are sculpted by the radiation and winds of their respective embedded star clusters, creating the intricate pillars and cavities that make this a favourite wide-field target.
Dark Seahorse Nebula (B150)
B150 · 1 Nov 2025 · Edinburgh
Barnard 150 is a dense dark nebula — a cold, opaque cloud of dust and molecular gas — in Cepheus, roughly 1,200 light-years away. Unlike emission or reflection nebulae it produces no light of its own; it is visible only as a silhouette against the star-rich background of the Milky Way. The elongated seahorse shape traces a dense filament of interstellar dust where future generations of stars are slowly condensing under gravity.
Horsehead Nebula (B33)
B33 · 25 Jan 2026 · Edinburgh
One of the most recognisable shapes in the night sky, Barnard 33 is a dark nebula in Orion silhouetted against the bright emission nebula IC 434 behind it, approximately 1,375 light-years away. The horse-head shape is a dense pillar of cold gas and dust slowly being eroded by ultraviolet radiation from the nearby hot star Sigma Orionis. New stars are forming deep within its dark interior, hidden from optical telescopes.
Pacman Nebula (NGC 281)
NGC 281 · 9 Mar 2026 · Edinburgh
NGC 281 in Cassiopeia earned its nickname from its resemblance to the classic arcade character, with a dark dust lane cutting across the bright nebula like an open mouth. Lying around 9,200 light-years away, it is an active star-forming region containing a young open cluster, IC 1590, whose hot stars are ionising the surrounding gas and driving prominent Bok globules — the dark teardrops visible within the nebula — which may themselves be collapsing to form new stars.
California Nebula (NGC 1499)
NGC 1499 · 14 Sep 2025 · Edinburgh
Stretching over 100 light-years and located about 1,000 light-years away in Perseus, the California Nebula is one of the largest emission nebulae in the sky — but its extremely low surface brightness makes it surprisingly difficult to photograph from light-polluted sites. It is ionised almost entirely by a single star, Xi Persei (Menkib), a luminous blue giant blazing with the power of roughly 263,000 Suns.
Monkey Head Nebula (NGC 2174)
NGC 2174 · 9 Mar 2026 · Edinburgh
NGC 2174 in Orion is an emission nebula and star-forming region around 6,400 light-years away. Its sculpted pillars and cavities are driven by ultraviolet radiation and stellar winds from the young cluster NGC 2175 embedded within. Hubble Space Telescope imagery of its pillars revealed them to be dense columns of gas being slowly photo-evaporated from the outside in.
Western Veil Nebula (NGC 6960)
NGC 6960 · 9 Feb 2026 · Edinburgh
The Western Veil is part of the Cygnus Loop supernova remnant, the remains of a massive star that exploded between 10,000 and 20,000 years ago around 2,100 light-years away. The bright star that appears to pierce the nebula — 52 Cygni — is actually a foreground star with no physical connection. The delicate filamentary structure results from the shockwave heating gas to millions of degrees as it expands outward at hundreds of kilometres per second.
Veil Nebula Complex (NGC 6960 / 6992 / IC 1340)
NGC 6960 / 6992 / IC 1340 · 29 Nov 2025 · Edinburgh
The full Veil Nebula complex spans about 3 degrees of sky — roughly six full Moon widths — and represents the complete shell of a supernova remnant in Cygnus around 2,100 light-years away. This mosaic captures the Western Veil (NGC 6960), Eastern Veil (NGC 6992), and Pickering's Triangle (IC 1340), a fainter central section discovered photographically by Williamina Fleming in 1904. The entire structure is still expanding at over 150 km per second.
North American Nebula (NGC 7000)
NGC 7000 · 4 Oct 2025 · Edinburgh
The North American Nebula in Cygnus bears an unmistakable resemblance to the North American continent, complete with a Gulf of Mexico-shaped dark bay formed by an intervening dust cloud. It lies roughly 2,590 light-years away and spans over 100 light-years. The identity of the star responsible for ionising it remained uncertain for decades — it is now thought to be Deneb, one of the most luminous stars known, or a hidden cluster of hot stars within the same region.
Wizard Nebula (NGC 7380)
NGC 7380 · 5 Apr 2026 · Edinburgh
NGC 7380 in Cepheus is an open cluster embedded in a surrounding emission nebula around 7,200 light-years away. The nebula's distinctive pointed towers of gas — which give it its wizard-like silhouette — are Bok globules and evaporating gaseous globules being sculpted by radiation from the young cluster stars. The whole complex is relatively young at only around 4 million years old.
Owl Nebula (M97)
M97 · 29 Nov 2025 · Edinburgh
Located 2,030 light-years away in Ursa Major, the Owl Nebula is one of the larger planetary nebulae in the sky, spanning roughly 3 light-years across. It was formed when a Sun-like star shed its outer layers at the end of its life, leaving behind a hot white dwarf at its centre whose ultraviolet radiation causes the surrounding gas to glow. The two dark circular patches that give it its owl-like appearance are cavities of lower gas density aligned along the polar axis of the original star.
Pleiades (M45)
M45 · 3 Oct 2025 · Edinburgh
The most famous star cluster in the sky, the Pleiades are only 444 light-years away and have been observed by virtually every human culture throughout history. The cluster contains over 1,000 confirmed members, the brightest of which are hot blue B-type stars around 100 million years old. The wispy blue reflection nebulosity visible around the stars is a chance encounter with an unrelated interstellar dust cloud the cluster is passing through, not the remnant of the stars' birth cloud.
Spiral Cluster (M34)
M34 · 3 Oct 2025 · Edinburgh
M34 in Perseus lies about 1,500 light-years away and contains roughly 400 stars spread across 35 light-years. At around 200 million years old it is a middle-aged open cluster by astronomical standards — young enough that many of its hot blue stars are still on the main sequence, but old enough that the most massive ones have already evolved away. Several double stars within the cluster are resolvable through a small telescope.
Patrick Starfish Cluster (NGC 1245)
NGC 1245 · 21 Mar 2026 · Edinburgh
NGC 1245 in Perseus is a rich open cluster around 9,000 light-years away, making it one of the more distant Messier-adjacent clusters visible from northern latitudes. At roughly 1 billion years old it is considerably older than most naked-eye clusters, and its evolved stellar population — including a prominent red giant branch — makes it a useful benchmark for stellar evolution models.
Broken Heart Cluster (NGC 2281)
NGC 2281 · 25 Jan 2026 · Edinburgh
NGC 2281 in Auriga is a loosely scattered open cluster around 1,600 light-years away. Its popular nickname comes from the distinctive heart-shaped arrangement of its brighter members with a dark gap at the centre, giving the impression of a broken heart. The cluster is estimated to be several hundred million years old, and its relative proximity makes individual stars easily resolvable even in small instruments.
Caroline's Rose Cluster (NGC 7789)
NGC 7789 · 9 Mar 2026 · Edinburgh
Discovered by Caroline Herschel in 1783 and named in her honour, NGC 7789 in Cassiopeia is one of the richest and oldest open clusters in the Milky Way — containing around 1,000 stars at a distance of 7,600 light-years. At roughly 1.6 billion years old, most of its massive stars have long since evolved into red giants, which give the cluster its characteristically warm-toned appearance. The interlocking loops of stars and dark lanes between them suggest a rose in bloom.
h Persei (NGC 869)
NGC 869 · 22 Feb 2026 · Edinburgh
h Persei (NGC 869) is the western component of the famous Double Cluster in Perseus, one of the finest sights in the northern sky. It lies about 7,500 light-years away and is only around 13 million years old — a stellar infant by any measure. The cluster is dominated by brilliant blue-white supergiant stars, with a sprinkling of contrasting red supergiants that have already evolved off the main sequence. Both clusters likely formed from the same giant molecular cloud.
Comet C/2025 R2
Edinburgh
C/2025 R2 is a long-period comet discovered in 2025 during routine sky surveys. Like all comets it is a primordial relic of the solar system's formation 4.6 billion years ago — a frozen body of ice and dust from the outer solar system that brightens dramatically as it approaches the Sun and volatile ices sublimate into a glowing coma and tail. Its orbital period suggests it originates in the distant Oort Cloud and may not return for tens of thousands of years.
Comet C/2025 Lemon
Edinburgh
Comet C/2025 Lemon is a dynamically new comet making its first recorded passage through the inner solar system, arriving fresh from the Oort Cloud. Its green colouring — visible in longer exposures — is caused by diatomic carbon molecules in the coma fluorescing under ultraviolet sunlight. First-time visitors from the Oort Cloud often produce dramatic displays as pristine, volatile-rich ices encounter solar radiation for the first time.