Starship Asterisk*

starsurfer wrote:This is an amazing and fairly unique vista as this might possibly be the only PN and WR nebula pairing in the sky!

neufer wrote:

starsurfer wrote:
Nearly all the NGC objects were discovered through visual observation.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catalogue_of_Nebulae_and_Clusters_of_Stars wrote:

[b][color=#0000FF]Henry Draper's 1880 photograph of the Orion Nebula, the first ever taken.[/color][/b]

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<<The Catalogue of Nebulae and Clusters of Stars was first published in 1786 by William Herschel in the Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London. In 1789, he added another 1,000 entries, and finally another 500 in 1802, bring the total to 2,500 entries. This catalogue originated the usage of letters and catalogue numbers as identifiers. The capital "H" followed with the catalogue entry number represented the item.

In 1864, the CN was expanded into the General Catalogue of Nebulae and Clusters and Clusters of Stars (GC) by John Herschel (William's son). The GC contained 5,079 entries. Later, a complementary edition of the catalog was published posthumously as the General Catalogue of 10,300 Multiple and Double Stars. The small "h" followed with the catalogue entry number represented the item.

In 1878, John Louis Emil Dreyer published a supplement to the General Catalogue. In 1886, he suggested building a second supplement to the General Catalogue, but the Royal Astronomical Society asked Dreyer to compile a new version instead. This led to the publication of the New General Catalogue (NGC) in 1888, and its two expansions, the Index Catalogues (IC), in 1895 and 1908.>>

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Astrophotography wrote:

[b][color=#0000FF][size=135]One of Andrew Ainslie Common's 1883 photographs of the Orion Nebula, the first to show that a long exposure could record stars and nebulae invisible to the human eye.[/size][/color][/b]

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<<The first photograph of an astronomical object (the Moon) was taken in 1840, but it was not until the late 19th century that advances in technology allowed for detailed stellar photography. Besides being able to record the details of extended objects such as the Moon, Sun, and planets, astrophotography has the ability to image objects invisible to the human eye such as dim stars, nebulae, and galaxies. This is done by long time exposure since both film and digital cameras can accumulate and sum light photons over these long periods of time. Photography revolutionized the field of professional astronomical research, with long time exposures recording hundreds of thousands of new stars and nebulae that were invisible to the human eye, leading to specialized and ever larger optical telescopes that were essentially big cameras designed to collect light to be recorded on film. Direct astrophotography had an early role in sky surveys and star classification but over time it has given way to more sophisticated equipment and techniques designed for specific fields of scientific research, with film (and later astronomical CCD cameras) becoming just one of many forms of sensor.>>

starsurfer wrote:
Nearly all the NGC objects were discovered through visual observation.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catalogue_of_Nebulae_and_Clusters_of_Stars wrote:

[b][color=#0000FF]Henry Draper's 1880 photograph of the Orion Nebula, the first ever taken.[/color][/b]

---

<<The Catalogue of Nebulae and Clusters of Stars was first published in 1786 by William Herschel in the Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London. In 1789, he added another 1,000 entries, and finally another 500 in 1802, bring the total to 2,500 entries. This catalogue originated the usage of letters and catalogue numbers as identifiers. The capital "H" followed with the catalogue entry number represented the item.

In 1864, the CN was expanded into the General Catalogue of Nebulae and Clusters and Clusters of Stars (GC) by John Herschel (William's son). The GC contained 5,079 entries. Later, a complementary edition of the catalog was published posthumously as the General Catalogue of 10,300 Multiple and Double Stars. The small "h" followed with the catalogue entry number represented the item.

In 1878, John Louis Emil Dreyer published a supplement to the General Catalogue. In 1886, he suggested building a second supplement to the General Catalogue, but the Royal Astronomical Society asked Dreyer to compile a new version instead. This led to the publication of the New General Catalogue (NGC) in 1888, and its two expansions, the Index Catalogues (IC), in 1895 and 1908.>>

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Astrophotography wrote:

[b][color=#0000FF][size=135]One of Andrew Ainslie Common's 1883 photographs of the Orion Nebula, the first to show that a long exposure could record stars and nebulae invisible to the human eye.[/size][/color][/b]

---

<<The first photograph of an astronomical object (the Moon) was taken in 1840, but it was not until the late 19th century that advances in technology allowed for detailed stellar photography. Besides being able to record the details of extended objects such as the Moon, Sun, and planets, astrophotography has the ability to image objects invisible to the human eye such as dim stars, nebulae, and galaxies. This is done by long time exposure since both film and digital cameras can accumulate and sum light photons over these long periods of time. Photography revolutionized the field of professional astronomical research, with long time exposures recording hundreds of thousands of new stars and nebulae that were invisible to the human eye, leading to specialized and ever larger optical telescopes that were essentially big cameras designed to collect light to be recorded on film. Direct astrophotography had an early role in sky surveys and star classification but over time it has given way to more sophisticated equipment and techniques designed for specific fields of scientific research, with film (and later astronomical CCD cameras) becoming just one of many forms of sensor.>>

Visual_Astronomer wrote:

starsurfer wrote:This is an amazing and fairly unique vista as this might possibly be the only PN and WR nebula pairing in the sky! Another contrast is that the Crescent Nebula has been known since the 18th century but the Soap Bubble Nebula was only discovered in 2008.

I was looking at the Crescent just last night, it is quite interesting with a fair amount of detail visible through narrow-band filters. The Soap Bubble, on the other hand, only appears in photographs. That's why it was only recently discovered.

starsurfer wrote:This is an amazing and fairly unique vista as this might possibly be the only PN and WR nebula pairing in the sky! Another contrast is that the Crescent Nebula has been known since the 18th century but the Soap Bubble Nebula was only discovered in 2008.

neufer wrote:

Ann wrote:
The star that blew the Soap Bubble nebula is long dead, a stellar cinder slowly radiating its remnant heat into space.

A very hot cinder (illuminating the Soap Bubble) from a recently deceased hydrogen burning star.

The star that blew off the Soap Bubble nebula a mere few thousand years ago
currently illuminates the same as it transforms into a long lived white dwarf star.

Wikipedia wrote:
For a typical planetary nebula, about 10,000 years[12] passes between its formation and recombination of the star.

Ann wrote:
The star that blew the Soap Bubble nebula is long dead, a stellar cinder slowly radiating its remnant heat into space.

• A very hot cinder (illuminating the Soap Bubble) from a recently deceased hydrogen burning star.
  
  The star that blew off the Soap Bubble nebula a mere few thousand years ago
  currently illuminates the same as it transforms into a long lived white dwarf star.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Planetary_nebula#Lifetime wrote:

[b][color=#0000FF]Within the last two thousand years, the central star of the Ring Nebula has left the asymptotic giant branch and is now becoming a compact white dwarf star.[/color][/b]

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<<After a star passes through the asymptotic giant branch (AGB) phase, the short planetary nebula phase of stellar evolution begins as gases blow away from the central star at speeds of a few kilometers per second. The central star is the remnant of its AGB progenitor, an electron-degenerate carbon-oxygen core that has lost most of its hydrogen envelope due to mass loss on the AGB. As the gases expand, the central star undergoes a two-stage evolution, first growing hotter as it continues to contract and hydrogen fusion reactions occur in the shell around the core and then slowly cooling once the hydrogen shell is exhausted through fusion and mass loss. In the second phase, it radiates away its energy and fusion reactions cease, as the central star is not heavy enough to generate the core temperatures required for carbon and oxygen to fuse. During the first phase, the central star maintains constant luminosity, while at the same time it grows ever hotter, eventually reaching temperatures around 100,000 K. In the second phase, it cools so much that it does not give off enough ultraviolet radiation to ionize the increasingly distant gas cloud. The star becomes a white dwarf, and the expanding gas cloud becomes invisible to us, ending the planetary nebula phase of evolution. For a typical planetary nebula, about 10,000 years passes between its formation and recombination of the star.>>

APOD Robot wrote about the Soap Bubble and the Crescent Nebula:
Both were formed at a final phase in the life of a star.