Starship Asterisk*

jethrie wrote:This APOD is very very very similar to the 2010 April 26 one (http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap100426.html)
I'm glad to see the new view (different angle and colors, but is the extract part of the same Hubble shot, or a new photograph?) - the text at least is almost unchanged compared to its 3-year-elder.

Q4: Have some APOD pictures been run more than once?
A4: Yes. Many of our readers have been with us less than a year and are unaware of some really spectacular or important astronomy pictures. New information about old pictures is becoming available over the WWW. The text and links for rerun pictures will make use of this newly available information. So although the picture might be old, some of the text and links of each APOD will be new. Also, more web surfers have larger bandwidth connections, which allows us to post higher-resolution image files that can be transferred conveniently. Software to handle more sophisticated image file formats has also become more common, so the picture's size and/or format might be new. Lastly, rerunning APODs saves us time and helps us update our archive. In general, our rerun policy currently is to only rerun APODs more than one year old to keep the pictures relatively "new" to new APOD viewers. We will almost never rerun more than two pictures in any given week. So when you load the current APOD,it is still, most probably, a new picture.

Ann wrote:

MikeK wrote:
So if I have read the info on this, it is possible that it could form a new star or even a new solar system?

Yes indeed, that's just what astronomers think we are seeing.

Ann

MikeK wrote:
So if I have read the info on this, it is possible that it could form a new star or even a new solar system?

stephen63 wrote:

MikeK wrote:Just question! On the photo, there is a pea (relative!) sized dust cloud(?) on the upper left. Any idea what that is?

Mike

It looks like a Bok globule.

MikeK wrote:Just question! On the photo, there is a pea (relative!) sized dust cloud(?) on the upper left. Any idea what that is?

Mike

the name "Trumpeter 14" would be lovely indeed, as you could really imagine someone blowing the trumpet in there. But it is actually Trumpler 14, named after the person who cataloged this cluster.

Aww!

MargaritaMc wrote:

This image is a composite of many separate exposures made by the ACS instrument on the Hubble Space Telescope along with ground-based observations. In total, three filters were used to sample narrow wavelength emission. The color results from assigning different hues (colors) to each monochromatic image. In this case, the assigned colors are:

CTIO: ([O III] 501nm) blue
CTIO: (H-alpha+[N II] 658nm) green
CTIO: ( 672+673nm) red
HST/ACS: F656N (H-alpha+[N II]) luminosity*
*The higher resolution, black & white Hubble image and the lower resolution, color CTIO images were combined using a technique that takes luminosity (brightness) information from the black and white ACS image and color information from the composite CTIO image. This preserves all of the higher-resolution detail from the Hubble data while rendering a color image representing the physical processes in this active region of space.

http://hubblesite.org/newscenter/archiv ... fastfacts/

At first I thought these were what I think of as 'actual' visible colours - but checking the wavelengths I see that although the wavelengths are within the range that human eyes can perceive, the colours assigned aren't the visual equivalents.

I presume that this is so that the representation 'of the physical processes in this active region of space' may be understood more readily?
Margarita

MargaritaMc wrote:Following one of the EXCELLENT links from this Apod took me to a detailed and labeled map at
http://heritage.stsci.edu/2007/16/supplemental.html#

Am I correct in saying that today's Apod is of a part of the Carina Nebula labeled as "Trumpeter 14"? (On the bottom right of the image in the linked map, within a rectangle labeled c1)

It certainly would be an appropriate name for this dust pillar - which is SO like an elephant's trunk!
Margarita

This image is a composite of many separate exposures made by the ACS instrument on the Hubble Space Telescope along with ground-based observations. In total, three filters were used to sample narrow wavelength emission. The color results from assigning different hues (colors) to each monochromatic image. In this case, the assigned colors are:

CTIO: ([O III] 501nm) blue
CTIO: (H-alpha+[N II] 658nm) green
CTIO: ( 672+673nm) red
HST/ACS: F656N (H-alpha+[N II]) luminosity*
*The higher resolution, black & white Hubble image and the lower resolution, color CTIO images were combined using a technique that takes luminosity (brightness) information from the black and white ACS image and color information from the composite CTIO image. This preserves all of the higher-resolution detail from the Hubble data while rendering a color image representing the physical processes in this active region of space.