It's peak laziness on my part, but I did a fully automatic process on data collected by a fully automatic telescope.

My whole role in this was plugging it in and starting the process. I could have been replaced by a 2-line shell script and a well-trained dog.

Anyway, here's the North American Nebula.

2024 November 4

M42: The Great Nebula in Orion
* Credit & Copyright: Fényes Lóránd
https://fenyeslorand.hu/

Explanation:
The Great Nebula in Orion, an immense, nearby starbirth region, is probably the most famous of all astronomical nebulas. Here, glowing gas surrounds hot young stars at the edge of an immense interstellar molecular cloud only 1500 light-years away. In the featured deep image in assigned colors highlighted by emission in oxygen and hydrogen, wisps and sheets of dust and gas are particularly evident. The Great Nebula in Orion can be found with the unaided eye near the easily identifiable belt of three stars in the popular constellation Orion. In addition to housing a bright open cluster of stars known as the Trapezium, the Orion Nebula contains many stellar nurseries. These nurseries contain much hydrogen gas, hot young stars, proplyds, and stellar jets spewing material at high speeds. Also known as M42, the Orion Nebula spans about 40 light years and is located in the same spiral arm of our Galaxy as the Sun.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orion_Nebula

https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap241104.html

2025 August 13

A bright nebula occupies the center of the frame. The nebula is complex but roughly tan in the center and red around the edges. In the center are four bright blue stars.

Trapezium: In the Heart of Orion
* Image Credit: Data: Hubble Legacy Archive
http://hla.stsci.edu/
* Processing: Robert Gendler
http://www.robgendlerastropics.com/

Explanation:
What lies in the heart of Orion? Trapezium: four bright stars, that can be found near the center of this sharp cosmic portrait. Gathered within a region about 1.5 light-years in radius, these stars dominate the core of the dense Orion Nebula Star Cluster. Ultraviolet ionizing radiation from the Trapezium stars, mostly from the brightest star Theta-1 Orionis C powers the complex star forming region's entire visible glow. About three million years old, the Orion Nebula Cluster was even more compact in its younger years and a dynamical study indicates that runaway stellar collisions at an earlier age may have formed a black hole with more than 100 times the mass of the Sun. The presence of a black hole within the cluster could explain the observed high velocities of the Trapezium stars. The Orion Nebula's distance of some 1,500 light-years make it one of the closest candidate black holes to Earth.
http://www.robgendlerastropics.com/TrapMosaic-HST-Gendler.html
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trapezium_Cluster
http://stars.astro.illinois.edu/sow/theta1ori.html

https://ui.adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2012ApJ...757...37S/abstract
https://skyandtelescope.org/astronomy-news/a-black-hole-in-orion/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_nearest_known_black_holes

https://science.nasa.gov/ems/10_ultravioletwaves/
https://spaceplace.nasa.gov/light-year/en/

https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap250813.html

2015 August 13

Moonless Meteors and the Milky Way
* Image Credit & Copyright: Petr Horálek
https://www.petrhoralek.com/?page_id=20

Explanation:
Have you watched the Perseid meteor shower? Though the annual shower's predicted peak was last night, meteor activity should continue tonight (August 13/14), best enjoyed by just looking up in clear, dark skies after midnight. Of course, this year's Perseid shower has the advantage of being active near the August 14 New Moon. Since the nearly New Moon doesn't rise before the morning twilight many fainter meteors are easier to spot until then, with no interference from bright moonlight. The Perseid meteor shower last occurred near a New Moon in 2013. That's when the exposures used to construct this image were made, under dark, moonless skies from Hvar Island off the coast of Croatia. The widefield composite includes 67 meteors streaming from the heroic constellation Perseus, the shower's radiant, captured during 2013 August 8-14 against a background of faint zodiacal light and the Milky Way.
https://www.petrhoralek.com/?p=42

https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap150813.html

February 19, 1999

On The Trail Of A Fireball
* Credit: Courtesy P. Spurny, (Astronomical Institute, Ondrejov Observatory)
https://www.asu.cas.cz/en/about/about-the-institute

Explanation:
This exceptionally bright fireball meteor trail was photographed with a fish-eye camera at a Czech Republic station of the European Fireball Network on January 21, 1999. Of the star trails visible in this night-long exposure, the bright short arc in the upper left is due to Polaris, the north star. The breaks seen near the beginning of the fireball trail itself were produced by a shutter rotating 15 times a second. In all, three stations recorded the dazzling streak and their combined tracking information has revealed details of the meteor's brief atmospheric flight and previous interplanetary voyage. For example, the luminous trail is measured to begin at an altitude of 81.9 kilometers and covered 71.1 kilometers in 6.7 seconds. The projected prior orbit for the meteoroid corresponds to one typical for Apollo class asteroids which can cross Earth's orbit. In forty years of operations the European Network has multistation recordings of less than 10 or so fireballs as bright as this one. It is thought likely that a small (a few hundred grams) meteorite survived this fiery fall to Earth and landed near the Czech-Poland border.

https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap990219.html

Earthgrazer: The Great Daylight Fireball of 1972
* Credit & Copyright: James M. Baker

Explanation:
What is that streaking across the sky? A bright earthgrazing meteor. In 1972, an unusually bright meteor from space was witnessed bouncing off Earth's atmosphere, much like a skipping stone can bounce off of a calm lake. The impressive event lasted several seconds, was visible in daylight, and reportedly visible all the way from Utah, USA to Alberta, Canada. Pictured above, the fireball was photographed streaking above Teton mountains behind Jackson Lake, Wyoming, USA. The Great Daylight Fireball of 1972 was possibly the size of a small truck, and would likely have created an impressive airburst were it to have struck Earth more directly. Earthgrazing meteors are rare but are more commonly seen when the radiant of a meteor shower is just rising or setting. At that time, meteors closer to the Earth than earthgrazers would more usually strike the Earth near the horizon, while meteors further than earthgrazers would miss the Earth entirely.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1972_Great_Daylight_Fireball

https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap090302.html

2008 November 25

Fireball Over Edmonton
* Credit & Copyright Global Television Edmonton, YouTube
https://www.globaltv.com/

Explanation:
What if you're driving down the street and an object from space shoots across the sky right in front of you? Such was the case last week for many people in south central Canada. Specifically, an extremely bright fireball, presumably a desk-sized meteor from deep space, flashed across the sky just after sunset on 2008 November 20. The bright fireball was recorded on many images and movies, including the spectacular video shown above that was captured by a dashboard camera of a police cruiser in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada. Because at least two streaks appear to be visible, the falling object likely broke up into pieces as it fell deep into Earth's atmosphere. By triangulating fireball images from several simultaneously recorded sources, astronomers hope to find an approximate orbit from whence the object came, as well as the likely place(s) on Earth where large pieces would have impacted, were they to have survived entry. In the best case scenario, pieces would be recovered from a known deep space comet or asteroid, giving humanity an unprecedented look at an ancient object that likely holds clues to the early years of our Earth and the Solar System.

https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap081125.html

The 2025 Perseid meteor shower peaks on the night between August 12 and August 13. The Perseids usually put on a good show and this year may produce 50 to 75 meteors per hour at a dark site.

Like most meteor showers, the Lyrids are caused by the debris of a comet or asteroid that once crossed Earth's path. In this case, the shower is caused by debris from the comet Swift-Tuttle. Sightings of comet Swift-Tuttle have been recorded throughout history, with the comet’s orbit bringing it near Earth every 133 or so years. It last entered the inner Solar System in 1992. The debris from this comet is known to cause fireballs often.

The Perseid radiant is somewhat north on the sky’s dome, making it more visible from the Northern Hemisphere, but may also be somewhat visible from the Southern Hemisphere. Meteors will appear to come from an area near the constellation Perseus. Meteors will streak out from this area of the sky in all directions.

The best way to watch a meteor shower is from a dark sky site, so it helps to get away from city lights as much as you can. Skywatchers should go to the darkest place they can, let their eyes adjust, and look overhead — but avoid staring directly at the Moon.

Meteors are also known as shooting stars, but they aren't actually stars at all. Meteors are streaks of light in the sky caused by dust and small rocks burning up as they hit Earth's atmosphere at very high speeds — tens of kilometers per second.

These small particles create bright streaks of light you can see from the ground at night. In general, the bigger the piece of space dust, the brighter the meteor. If any pieces of the streaking rock survive to make it to the ground, they're called meteorites.

CREDITS:
The Planetary Society

2007 August 12

Raining Perseids
* Credit & Copyright: Fred Bruenjes
http://www.moonglow.net/ccd/index.html

Explanation:
Tonight is a good night to see meteors. Comet dust will rain down on planet Earth, streaking through dark skies in the annual Perseid meteor shower. While enjoying the anticipated space weather, astronomer Fred Bruenjes recorded a series of many 30 second long exposures spanning about six hours on the night of 2004 August 11/12 using a wide angle lens. Combining those frames which captured meteor flashes, he produced this dramatic view of the Perseids of summer. Although the comet dust particles are traveling parallel to each other, the resulting shower meteors clearly seem to radiate from a single point on the sky in the eponymous constellation Perseus. The radiant effect is due to perspective, as the parallel tracks appear to converge at a distance. Bruenjes notes that there are 51 Perseid meteors in the composite image, including one seen nearly head-on. This year, the Perseids Meteor Shower is expected to peak after midnight tonight, in the moonless early morning hours of August 12.

https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap070812.html