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This is a single photo of the Andromeda Galaxy (M31) taken by CIERA graduate student Imran Sultan from the darkest skies in America. Astrophotographers typically “stack” hundreds of photos together to reveal faint detail in images, but the sky here was so dark that just one five minute exposure was enough. Sultan shot the photo

This composite image depicts photographer and CIERA graduate student Imran Sultan’s progress shooting the Solar System over 2022-2023. Sultan captured the Sun, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, and the Moon. Each object in the photo is not to scale (in terms of the angular size of the objects in our sky), since different equipment and processing

In sufficiently dark skies, you can spot a handful of stars packed closely together. This is an open star cluster called the Pleiades, also known as the Seven Sisters. Photographer and CIERA graduate student Imran Sultan’s image shows the Pleiades in the center and the nearby reflection nebulosity (there are evidently many more stars than

In our sky, close to the handle of the Big Dipper are the two galaxies M81 (Bode’s Galaxy, right) and M82 (Cigar Galaxy, left). These are two of the closest galaxies to our own Milky Way and two of the brightest galaxies in our sky that can be observed with amateur telescopes. Photographer and CIERA

This is a picture of the Eagle Nebula, a magnificent emission nebula. At the heart of the Eagle Nebula are the Pillars of Creation, famously photographed by the Hubble Space Telescope in 1995, and recently by the James Webb Space Telescope. In this image, photographer and CIERA graduate student Imran Sultan depicts the Eagle Nebula

Interestingly, our moon has its own rich colors due to the variety of minerals which compose it– these colors are invisible to the human eye but were all captured by photographer and CIERA graduate student Imran Sultan‘s camera. To improve the color signal Sultan “stacked” or combined over 100 photos, and made saturation adjustments to increase

Photographer and CIERA graduate student Imran Sultan captured the Elephant’s Trunk Nebula (IC 1396) over two nights (July 9-10, 2023) from the bright skies of the Chicago suburbs. Observing the Elephant’s Trunk reveals emission from the ionized gas in the star-forming region, shown here in the HOO color palette. Sultan was able to overcome light

While visiting a dark sky park during mid June of 2023 to see the Milky Way core rise in the summer night sky, photographer and CIERA graduate student Imran Sultan got a rare treat: an incalculable number of fireflies had recently emerged in the central Illinois forest preserve. The dance of the terrestrial and celestial

The swirling oranges and sparkling refractions of light in this photo, captured by CIERA graduate student Imran Sultan, are the Pillars of Creation in the Eagle Nebula. The Pillars of Creation are part of an active star-forming region within the nebula and hide newborn stars in their cloud-like columns. This sight was captured from Bortle

When looking up into the sky, one of the first constellations many see is Orion, made up of three bright stars, one of which is the 11th brightest star in the sky. This photo of the Orion constellation, which also features the Great Orion Nebula and Horsehead/Flame Nebulae, was captured by CIERA graduate student Imran

This photo, captured by CIERA graduate student Imran Sultan, is a widefield shot of the interstellar gas and dust in the Cepheus constellation, prominently featuring the Shark Nebula. Interstellar gas is composed primarily of hydrogen, followed by helium with trace amounts of carbon, oxygen, and nitrogen. These clouds’ glowing nature is credited to the fluorescence

The purple and blue hues in this photo highlight the Lion Nebula, which was shot in the last two nights of July 2023 in dual narrowband (H-alpha and O III) in Illinois. This image was taken by Imran Sultan, a graduate student in CIERA Professor Claude-Andre Faucher-Giguere’s group who practices astrophotography in his free time.

This is a wide-field view of the Heart and Soul Nebulae in the constellation Cassiopeia. Captured by CIERA graduate student Imran Sultan from Bortle Class 8-9 city skies over three nights in dual narrowband (H-alpha and O III). Sultan, who practices astrophotography in his free time, is a graduate student in CIERA Professor Claude-Andre Faucher-Giguere’s

This emission around Sadr (including the Butterfly and Crescent nebulae), was captured by Imran Sultan from Bortle Class 8-9 city skies in narrowband, a filter that allows astronomers to isolate particular emission lines of gasses in astronomical objects. The Bortle Class scale measures the brightness of the night sky, with 8-9 signifying that the sky

In October 2022, an international team of researchers, including Northwestern University astrophysicists, observed the brightest gamma-ray burst (GRB) ever recorded, GRB 221009A. In a paper published in April 2024, a team led by CIERA Postdoctoral Fellow Peter Blanchard has confirmed that the phenomenon responsible for the historic burst — dubbed the B.O.A.T. (“brightest of all time”)

The April 8, 2024 solar eclipse, photographed by CIERA Postdoctoral Associate Meng Sun. This image of the partial eclipse before totality was captured in New Castle, Indiana, USA. Sun spots can be seen just above the moon and on the upper left of the sun. New Castle was located close to the center of eclipse’s

The April 8, 2024 total solar eclipse, photographed by CIERA Postdoctoral Associate Meng Sun. This composite image of all phases of the eclipse was captured in New Castle, Indiana, USA. New Castle was located close to the center of eclipse’s path of totality, meaning that totality lasted longer than at the edges of the path

A Hubble Space Telescope image of the host galaxy of an exceptionally powerful fast radio burst, FRB 20220610A. In summer 2022, astronomers detected the most powerful fast radio burst (FRB) ever observed. And coming from a location that dates halfway back to the Big Bang, it also was the farthest known FRB spotted to date.