Ancient Light: I have loved the stars too fondly to be fearful of the night

..unique collection of fine images of star clusters, galaxies, nebulae and other such spectacular phenomena captured on glass plates by some of the world’s finest optical telescopes.

M83, a spiral galaxy in Hydra

Hydra, the water snake, is largest constellation in the sky and it shares a long border with Centaurus, which is almost as big. Straddling the boundary we find a beautiful nearby spiral galaxy, M83. It is a galaxy of stars, gas and dust like the Milky Way…

The Horsehead nebula, dust and gas adrift in Orion

…While this image appears to have substance as well as style, there is little here that is solid, Most of what is dark, including the horse’s head itself, is little more than a cosmic smoke – screen made of tiny grains of dust. The wispy nebulosity that fills the field is tenuous gas, excited into a glowing plasma by surrounding stars.

Comet Halley, 12 March 1986

After a chilly sojourn in the outer solar system, Comet Halley returned to the warmth of the Sun in late 1985 after an absence of 76 years. Comet Halley rounded the Sun in February 1986 and was visible again to Earth-bound telescopes in early March. At this time the comet was at its most active and its dust tail very well developed. This wide angle image was made in blue light with the UK Schmidt camera and special photographic techniques reveal detailed structure in its long blue ion tail. The stars are slightly trailed because the telescope was tracking the comet for this 15-minute exposure, and the bright object at the top of the frame is the globular cluster 75.

Ancient Light

by David Malin

[Phaidon Press Limited]