Hanging from a web, it's the Spider Nebula!

Let's call her Charlotte. Less threatening that way. And more fun than the catalog number IC417.

Charlotte is 10,000 light-years away in the outer part of the Milky Way, almost exactly in the opposite direction from the galactic center. The formation is fairly young, judging by the fine detail and compact size. That means in the thousands of years as opposed to millions.

A cluster of young stars can be seen in the center. Their radiating light carves out a kind of hollow in the surrounding haze. Tiny protostars line the edges of the nebulonic clouds and in the thin vortex "web."

(Might have to zoom in to see protostars. They are tiny.)

The hot center is encircled by a ring of dark matter. It's likely heavier, nonreactive junk like dust, ash, carbon monoxide, and more complex compounds. You know...smoke.

These features suggest that Charlotte is the site of a supernova...the leftovers of an exploding star. The star cluster in the middle of the image is ground zero. Right after the explosion, the heaviest matter from the old star collapsed on itself to create these new, blue stars. The expanding clouds of hydrogen are excited by the new stars' radiation, making the gas glow orange.

Will have to confirm what made the vortex "web." Perhaps the old star ejected material from its poles before exploding. That would explain the cloud's thin, spiraling nature, and such a thing is commonly observed in other unstable stars.

What an awful winter this has been for the hobby. But the sky was clear last night for the first time in weeks. Humidity, haze, and quarter moon made conditions awful, but I was determined to get out and commune with the heavens.

Next time out I'll try to get what Charlotte the Spider is after—the nearby Fly nebula.

Tonight's entry was accompanied by David Hazeltine tickling the ivory with 𝘞𝘪𝘵𝘤𝘩𝘤𝘳𝘢𝘧𝘵.