Today's Edition
SARA ALZAABI (ABU DHABI)
Capturing the elusive Squid Nebula in a rare, striking photo opens a universe of possibilities for astronomy in the UAE. A top expert said this achievement of Al Khatim Astronomical Observatory underscores the nation's growing capacity to explore the deep sky.
The recently released image features the Squid Nebula - among the faintest and most technically demanding objects that can be observed from southern Arabia. Its glowing blue lines are set against the vivid red glow of the neighbouring Flying Bat nebula, creating a dramatic celestial contrast.
A nebula is a giant cloud of dust and gas in space, according to Nasa. Some of them emerge from the explosion of a dying a star while others serve as "nurseries" for stars that are a starting to form.
Speaking to Aletihad, Mohammed Odeh, Director of the International Astronomy Center, said the Squid Nebula photograph demonstrates the UAE's readiness to push the boundaries of astronomical discovery.
"The image confirms that we have the capabilities to start discovering a new nebula in the sky," he said, noting that any such breakthrough would be big win for the country as a whole.
It took nearly a year and a half of patient observation for the team to capture the image that brings two nebulae into the same celestial frame.
"The red nebula visible in the image is relatively bright and easier to capture," Odeh said. "What we were actually interested in imaging, however, is the blue one, known as the Squid Nebula, which appears only as a very faint blue colour."
Photographing the ethereal blue nebula was, he said, "extremely difficult" due to its exceptionally weak signal. The object cannot be detected in a single exposure, even one lasting several minutes. Instead, astronomers must gather several images and stack them together to coax the nebula's light out of the cosmic darkness.
Its position in the sky added another layer of complexity. From the UAE, the Squid Nebula doesn't climb too high in the sky, increasing atmospheric scattering and further diluting its already fragile glow.
Compounding the challenge was moderate light pollution around Al Khatim Observatory, located between Abu Dhabi and Al Ain. The combination of a faint deep-sky object, low altitude, and some urban lights created what Odeh described as "an extreme challenge" for astronomers.
Achieving the breakthrough did not require a giant telescope, but rather precision in equipment and technique.
"It does not need a large telescope - in fact, the opposite is true," Odeh said. "It requires a small instrument with extremely optimised lenses and a wide field of view."
The team also depended on highly specialised narrow-band filters to cut through light pollution, eventually upgrading to an advanced, expensive filter with a bandwidth of just three nanometres.
The telescope itself was refined in parallel, fine-tuned to maximise sensitivity to the nebula's faint emission.
The effort unfolded over nearly two years of testing, upgrades, and experimentation.
In total, astronomers collected more than 150 hours of exposure time, though only about half of the data survived final processing after frames affected by dust, clouds, or atmospheric interference were discarded.
"It is far better to work with a smaller number of high-quality images than to rely on large volumes of compromised data," Odeh said.
Imaging objects at the edge of detectability is essential, Odeh said, as sustained observation can occasionally reveal previously unknown oxygen-rich nebulae - a prospect he described as "very important for science".
He called the Squid Nebula photograph "the most difficult image ever captured in the UAE", hailing it as a defining milestone that now opens a pathway toward future astronomical discoveries.
