Crab nebula movie

This is a gif animation of the neutron star at the center of the crab nebula.
To see the animation, click here:
www.flickr.com/photos/18982521@N00/2489058342/sizes/o/

The crab nebula is the remainder of a supernova explosion of a star that was observed about 1054 by Chineese observers. The star collapsed so violently that it crushed most of its matter into a ball of pure neutrons the size of a city. The thing nearly collapsed into a black hole. Nowdays it spins at 30 revolutions per second

One picture was taken every 6 months over a period of 2 years and each image used as a frame in the animation. If you look closely at the animation near center of the nebula you can see what looks like faint waves, like a pebble dropped into water. These are relativistic shock waves of material being ejected from the spinning neutron star at the center.

As far as I know, this is the only earth based observation of this effect. There are versions seen by the Hubble Space telescope here:
chandra.harvard.edu/photo/2002/0052/movies.html