Starship Asterisk*

Well, let's see, you've got the Cookie Monster in the middle and Big Bird and the left -- what's the problem?

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The Skills required to create this photo amaze me as much as the photo itself!!



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The Cone Nebula appears, not to be not a cone at all - but the wake of the object at it's tip with an obvious bow wave in the direction of travel. We have it backwards.

I agree, Ann! They should have called it the Christmas Tree Nebula instead. :roll:

[quote="just carl"]There are programs where a screen is shown with only stars and another one with lines for constellations. Why not have something like that for these photos?[/quote]
[img2]http://img3.imageshack.us/img3/1149/conenebula.png[/img2]

The fox fur nebula looks more like a teddy bear to me. If I knew how to use image annotating software I would include a diagram. ;-)

[quote="rosechaney"]Wonderful complex picture. Being a neophyte mouse over names of objects in APOD photos would be most helpful. :roll: :?[/quote]

[float=right][img]http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_0ddck7YLcZ0/SNH3NBk4B3I/AAAAAAAAGM4/tUSvVE-6A_o/s400/2008-04-22.jpg[/img][/float]Great image, Geckzilla! Thanks! I don't know how to annotate images, so I thank you very much for doing it for us. I just have two things to add, and the first is the Fox Fur Nebula, which is seen at lower right in today's APOD and at lower left in your image. Here you can see a closeup of that nebula by Jean-Charles Cuillandre (CFHT) and Giovanni Anselmi (Coelum Astronomia). :arrow:

Finally there is the overall Christmas tree shape of this whole region with red and blue nebulosity and lots of stars decorating it like Christmas baubles. The tree shape can easily be seen out in your image, Geckzilla.

Ann

Hmm, I'm not sure why annotations are even necessary for this image. It's too deep to draw any constellations. The cone is obvious as the only thing that looks like a cone, S Mon is the bright star, red and blue were explained and everything else is dust.
[img]http://www.geckzilla.com/apod/cone.jpg[/img]

[quote="just carl"]I've mentioned this previously. Why not have a second photo with arrows or something pointing to the objects discussed. Many are obvious but sometimes it is reallly vague as to what is being discussed or noted.
There are Astronomy programs on the market where a screen is shown with only stars and another one with lines for constellations. Why not have something like that for these photos?[/quote]
Because the images are not created by anybody responsible for APOD. They are selected from a wide variety of sources by the APOD [i]editors[/i]. Some images do have annotations, but this needs to come from the image author. The editors don't have the time to annotate every image!

(Sometimes, forum members here add annotations and repost... but again, it comes down to time and motivation.)

Images shown on APOD are not created by the APOD editors. If an astrophotographer includes a labeled version of his/her image with the submission, often that also appears on APOD either with a mouseover or a link to the labeled image. That said, most images, including this one, are submitted without an annotated version. (Sometimes one is available on the astrophotographer's site, so it's worth looking there for one.)

It takes a lot of work to produce an image like this; I'm glad I get to see it, annotated or not!

I've mentioned this previously. Why not have a second photo with arrows or something pointing to the objects discussed. Many are obvious but sometimes it is reallly vague as to what is being discussed or noted.
There are Astronomy programs on the market where a screen is shown with only stars and another one with lines for constellations. Why not have something like that for these photos?

Wonderful complex picture. Being a neophyte mouse over names of objects in APOD photos would be most helpful. :roll: :?

http://hubblesite.org/gallery/album/pr2002011b
http://hubblesite.org/newscenter/archive/releases/2002/11/image/b/

What appears to be a void below the tip of the cone is an illusion caused by the bright ionized hydrogen gas surrounding it;. the cone itself is a 7-light-year-long pillar of dust and gas. Perhaps the star-forming region at the apex creates a shadow from the ionizing radiation of S Mon? I don't know, I'm certainly no expert on such matters.

Kudos to Dieter Willasch. What a beautiful, intriguing image.
:clap:

The cone shaped nebula is neat; even if it is a dog gone mystery! :mrgreen: [img2]http://www.grassrootsinternetstrategy.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2011/06/cute-dog.jpg[/img2]

I'm going to quote what I said about this pictrue in the Recent Submissions folder:

[quote]Dieter Willasch, I find your Fox Fur and Christmas Tree image incredibly handsome. Totally lovely! The details are great, and the colors are fantastic. Thank you!
[/quote]

As for the Cone Nebula, it belongs to the same "species" as the Horsehead Nebula, although it is not of the equine species! These "pillars" are simply parts of a nebula that are thicker and more resistant to erosion than most other parts of the nebula. The erosion in this case is caused by the ultraviolet blasts from the nearby O-type stars.

But because the pillars are "thick" parts of the nebula, they are also better at making stars. Starstruck, you are right that there is a star at the tip of the Cone Nebula, and there are still more stars forming inside. There is at least one star forming near the top of the Horsehead Nebula, too.

Ann

The cone looks to me like a wake generated by a blunt body tearing theough a gas at some hypersonic speed. The shock wave would compress the gas thereby making it more visible. The bright lens-shaped thing at the vertex of the cone would be the bow shock generated by aerodynamic heating. The angle of the cone would give you the Mach number of the moving body. The body itself is apparently very dense but not very luminous; could be one of those black-hole thingies.

The terrible vixen is rushing home to feed her foxlings and will fight the giants, she will. She has stolen their chickens.

hehe, I like the 'fox fur' part . . actually I can kind of make out the fox's head, her nose and two eyes, as she runs back into her blue cave with her thick lustrous coat trailing behind her . . . you have to be in awe of the forces that combine to make these unusual patterns. The 'cone' feature looks like it might have a star at it's point that has somehow deflected the 'smoke' in the prevailing interstellar wind. Almost looks like a vortex at it's margin. Like smoke trails eddying around an object placed in a wind tunnel. Very interesting features; good pic.

It sorta looks to me like a pebble on a sandcastle that prevents rain erosion directly beneath it, causing a stalagmite-like object. What the pebble's made of though is another question. ... Aaah aparently it's a Bok globule.

I know what it is. It's a crystal ball consulted by giants in the sky, sitting on a conical pedestal (the picture's upside down). If you wait long enough you might just see them, but ssshhh don't let them see you! They'll reach down and grab you with their big warty hands!

The blue glow is neat :!: For me, the mystery of the Cone Nebula isn't really It's shape... It's what the heck is that lens looking thing at the bottom :?: :?:

[url=http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap111213.html][img]http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/calendar/S_111213.jpg[/img] [size=150]In the Vicinity of the Cone Nebula[/size][/url]

[b] Explanation: [/b] Strange shapes and textures can be found in neighborhood of the [url=http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap040529.html]Cone Nebula[/url]. The [url=http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap081228.html]unusual shapes[/url] originate from fine interstellar [url=http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap990509.html]dust[/url] reacting in complex ways with the energetic light and hot gas being expelled by the young stars. The brightest star on the right of the [url=http://astro-cabinet.com/showimage.php?image=NGC2264-60m-Ha_45RGB_crop_ss_1.jpg&lang=english#]above picture[/url] is [url=http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap010424.html]S Mon[/url], while the region just below it has been nicknamed the [url=http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap080422.html]Fox Fur Nebula[/url] for its color and structure. The [url=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EN1Yxq8KMsw]blue glow[/url] directly surrounding S Mon results from [url=http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/reflection_nebulae.html]reflection[/url], where neighboring dust reflects light from the bright star. The [url=http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap111106.html]red glow[/url] that encompasses the whole region results not only from dust reflection but also [url=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emission_nebula]emission[/url] from [url=http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap010113.html]hydrogen[/url] gas [url=http://csep10.phys.utk.edu/astr162/lect/light/ionization.html]ionized[/url] by starlight. [url=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S_Monocerotis]S Mon[/url] is part of a young open [url=http://asterisk.apod.com/viewtopic.php?f=24&t=18009]cluster of stars[/url] named [url=http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2002AAS...200.7002L]NGC 2264[/url], located about 2500 [url=http://imagine.gsfc.nasa.gov/docs/ask_astro/answers/980211a.html]light years[/url] away toward the [url=http://www.astro.wisc.edu/~dolan/constellations/extra/constellations.html]constellation[/url] of the Unicorn ([url=http://www.hawastsoc.org/deepsky/mon/index.html]Monoceros[/url]). The origin of the [url=http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap020107.html]mysterious geometric Cone Nebula[/url], visible on the far left, remains [url=http://www.grassrootsinternetstrategy.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2011/06/cute-dog.jpg]a mystery[/url].

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