APOD: The Pelican Nebula in Gas, Dust, and... (2015 Nov 17)

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APOD: The Pelican Nebula in Gas, Dust, and... (2015 Nov 17)

Post by APOD Robot » Tue Nov 17, 2015 5:07 am

Image The Pelican Nebula in Gas, Dust, and Stars

Explanation: The Pelican Nebula is slowly being transformed. IC 5070, the official designation, is divided from the larger North America Nebula by a molecular cloud filled with dark dust. The Pelican, however, receives much study because it is a particularly active mix of star formation and evolving gas clouds. The featured picture was produced in three specific colors -- light emitted by sulfur, hydrogen, and oxygen -- that can help us to better understand these interactions. The light from young energetic stars is slowly transforming the cold gas to hot gas, with the advancing boundary between the two, known as an ionization front, visible in bright orange on the right. Particularly dense tentacles of cold gas remain. Millions of years from now this nebula might no longer be known as the Pelican, as the balance and placement of stars and gas will surely leave something that appears completely different.

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Re: APOD: The Pelican Nebula in Gas, Dust, and... (2015 Nov 17)

Post by Indigo_Sunrise » Tue Nov 17, 2015 11:30 am

Confession: I've never been able to see a pelican in this nebula.
(Is there an 'outlined image' somewhere that someone could point me to? TIA!)

And this is a gorgeous image! 8-)
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Re: APOD: The Pelican Nebula in Gas, Dust, and... (2015 Nov 17)

Post by geckzilla » Tue Nov 17, 2015 12:22 pm

Indigo_Sunrise wrote:Confession: I've never been able to see a pelican in this nebula.
(Is there an 'outlined image' somewhere that someone could point me to? TIA!)

And this is a gorgeous image! 8-)
The way I understand it is like this.
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Re: APOD: The Pelican Nebula in Gas, Dust, and... (2015 Nov 17)

Post by Ann » Tue Nov 17, 2015 12:47 pm

geckzilla wrote:
Indigo_Sunrise wrote:Confession: I've never been able to see a pelican in this nebula.
(Is there an 'outlined image' somewhere that someone could point me to? TIA!)

And this is a gorgeous image! 8-)
The way I understand it is like this.
Image
No. The Pelican is much larger. You can actually see its outline in the photo where you drew your own, smaller pelican. The real Pelican, as seen in your photo, includes almost all the blue areas.

You can see another version of the Pelican, looking more pelican-like, at left.

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Re: APOD: The Pelican Nebula in Gas, Dust, and... (2015 Nov 17)

Post by geckzilla » Tue Nov 17, 2015 1:04 pm

I still only see the pelican in the same spot where I drew it in your image, Ann.
pelican_outline2.jpg
pelican_outline2.jpg (26.14 KiB) Viewed 2801 times
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Re: APOD: The Pelican Nebula in Gas, Dust, and... (2015 Nov 17)

Post by Chris Peterson » Tue Nov 17, 2015 2:50 pm

geckzilla wrote:I still only see the pelican in the same spot where I drew it in your image, Ann.
I've always seen it where I think Ann is seeing it, too. Much bigger, as she says.
peli2.jpg
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Re: APOD: The Pelican Nebula in Gas, Dust, and... (2015 Nov 17)

Post by geckzilla » Tue Nov 17, 2015 2:57 pm

That's clearly a pterodactyl.
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Re: APOD: The Pelican Nebula in Gas, Dust, and... (2015 Nov 17)

Post by Chris Peterson » Tue Nov 17, 2015 3:06 pm

geckzilla wrote:That's clearly a pterodactyl.
This is close:
brown_pelican390small.jpg
brown_pelican390small.jpg (8.99 KiB) Viewed 2758 times
But I could live with the "Pterodactyl Nebula".
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Re: APOD: The Pelican Nebula in Gas, Dust, and... (2015 Nov 17)

Post by neufer » Tue Nov 17, 2015 5:00 pm

.
  • King Lear Act 3, Scene 4

KING LEAR: Is it the fashion, that discarded fathers
  • Should have thus little mercy on their flesh?
    Judicious punishment! 'twas this flesh begot
    Those pelican daughters.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pelican wrote: <<In medieval Europe, the pelican was thought to be particularly attentive to her young, to the point of providing her own blood by wounding her own breast when no other food was available. Elizabeth I of England adopted the symbol, portraying herself as the "mother of the Church of England". Nicholas Hilliard painted the Pelican Portrait in around 1573, now owned by the Walker Art Gallery in Liverpool. A pelican feeding her young is depicted in an oval panel at the bottom of the title page of the first (1611) edition of the King James Bible. The self-sacrificial aspect of the pelican was reinforced by the widely read medieval bestiaries. The device of "a pelican in her piety" or "a pelican vulning (from Latin vulno, "to wound") herself" was used in heraldry. An older version of the myth is that the pelican used to kill its young then resurrect them with its blood.

The legends of self-wounding and the provision of blood may have arisen because of the impression a pelican sometimes gives that it is stabbing itself with its bill. In reality, it often presses this onto its chest in order to fully empty the pouch. Another possible derivation is the tendency of the bird to rest with its bill on its breast.>>
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Re: APOD: The Pelican Nebula in Gas, Dust, and... (2015 Nov 17)

Post by Indigo_Sunrise » Tue Nov 17, 2015 5:03 pm

These 'traced-over' images are great! At least now I can see the resemblance. Or resemblances..?
And 'Pterodactyl Nebula' sounds good to me! :-D
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Re: APOD: The Pelican Nebula in Gas, Dust, and... (2015 Nov 17)

Post by starsurfer » Tue Nov 17, 2015 6:29 pm

The dark nebula that separates the Pelican Nebula from the North America Nebula is the well studied LDN 935. A rare image by Antonio Sánchez can be seen here.

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Re: APOD: The Pelican Nebula in Gas, Dust, and... (2015 Nov 17)

Post by Boomer12k » Tue Nov 17, 2015 9:55 pm

Gorgeous!!!

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