At least I can seek out Ha and Hb targets when the moon is out!  The Triad filter doesn't pass the lunar spectrum! Also interesting is that I'm using calibration frames for the visual spectrum and they appear to work just fine for this end of the range, too.

An image worthy of a biology lesson as we peer inside a celestial brain to find its star of conciousness.

This is Lowers' Nebula (Sh2-261). Barely worth a mention in sky catalogs. But examined up close shows a very dramatic image indeed.

This cloud of ionized hydrogen is so dim that it wasn't even discovered until 1939, by the Lower Brothers.

Look at how the superhot star in the middle single-handidly lights up what would be the thalamus region of the brain...in reality occupying a vacuous cavity left behind after an old star blew up in an impressive supernova, scattering its guts in all directions. This new star was likely formed from the remaining matter and is big, blue, hot, and young.

(The real thalamus regulates sleep and wakefulness. It is obviously not functioning well in my own noggin.)

I love the way the hydrogen cloud underneath the star is disturbed enough to create look of whitewater...made to glow even brighter from the star's blue light

In the sky this visible part of Lowers appears a little larger than our full moon. But it is much dimmer and requires a scope to see. It's near Orion's left shoulder (the star Betelgeuse).
Scientists haven't examined this one in great detail. They don't even know with confidence how far away it is from us. If it's like other nearby nebula, it is in an adjacent spiral arm of our galaxy and perhaps 2500 light years away, but that's just conjecture.

So I prefer to think of Lowers as a disemodied brain, growing ever bigger as it contemplates the heavens.

What a pleasure this week to browse the stars from outside for a change, as the night hovered in the low 60s for the first time...a harbinger of the approaching spring.

In a departure from jazz tonight, I'm writing this while working on one of my own songs, Color and Light, inspired by these images of the sky.