HEIC: NGC 6503: At the Edge of the Abyss

[bystander]

NGC 6503: At the Edge of the Abyss
ESA/Hubble Picture of the Week | 29 Nov 2010

Click to view full size image

Fresh starbirth infuses the galaxy NGC 6503 with a vital pink glow in this image from the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope. This galaxy, a smaller version of the Milky Way, is perched near a great void in space where few other galaxies reside.

This new image from Hubble’s Advanced Camera for Surveys displays, with particular clarity, the pink-coloured puffs marking where stars have recently formed in NGC 6503's swirling spiral arms. Although structurally similar to the Milky Way, the disc of NGC 6503 spans just 30 000 light-years, or just about a third of the size of the Milky Way, leading astronomers to classify NGC 6503 as a dwarf spiral galaxy.

NGC 6503 lies approximately 17 million light-years away in the constellation of Draco (the Dragon). The German astronomer Arthur Auwers discovered this galaxy in July 1854 in a region of space where few other luminous bodies have been found.

NGC 6503 sits at the edge of a giant, hollowed-out region of space called the Local Void. The Hercules and Coma galaxy clusters, as well as our own Local Group of galaxies, circumscribe this vast, sparsely populated region. Estimates for the void’s diameter vary from 30 million to more than 150 million light-years — so NGC 6503 does not have a lot of galactic company in its immediate vicinity.

The isolation of NGC 6503 inspired the stargazer Stephen James O'Meara to name it the Lost-In-Space Galaxy in his book Hidden Treasures.

This Hubble image was created from exposures taken with the Wide Field Channel of the Advanced Camera for Surveys. The filters were unusual, which explains the peculiar colour balance of this picture. The red colouration derives from a 28-minute exposure through a filter that just allows the emission from hydrogen gas (F658N) to pass and which reveals the glowing clouds of gas associated with star-forming regions. This was combined with a 12-minute exposure through a near-infrared filter (F814W), which was coloured blue for contrast. The field of view is 3.3 by 1.8 arcminutes.

Credit: NASA/ESA/Hubble

[neufer]

NGC 6503: At the Edge of the Abyss
ESA/Hubble Picture of the Week | 29 Nov 2010

Click to view full size image

NGC 6503 sits at the edge of a giant, hollowed-out region of space called the Local Void. The Hercules and Coma galaxy clusters, as well as our own Local Group of galaxies, circumscribe this vast, sparsely populated region. Estimates for the void’s diameter vary from 30 million to more than 150 million light-years — so NGC 6503 does not have a lot of galactic company in its immediate vicinity. The isolation of NGC 6503 inspired the stargazer Stephen James O'Meara to name it the Lost-In-Space Galaxy in his book Hidden Treasures.

This Hubble image was created from exposures taken with the Wide Field Channel of the Advanced Camera for Surveys. The filters were unusual, which explains the peculiar colour balance of this picture. The red colouration derives from a 28-minute exposure through a filter that just allows the emission from hydrogen gas (F658N) to pass and which reveals the glowing clouds of gas associated with star-forming regions. This was combined with a 12-minute exposure through a near-infrared filter (F814W), which was coloured blue for contrast. The field of view is 3.3 by 1.8 arcminutes.

Annoyed the Void

[size=135][color=#FF00FF]Deliver an NGC 6503 pizza to Doom Industries[/color][/size]

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<<Avoid the Noid is a platform computer game for the Commodore 64 and DOS, written in 1989 to promote Domino's Pizza. In the game, you must deliver a pizza to Doom Industries on the top floor of an apartment building while avoiding the Noid creatures and their traps as you go.

The protagonist pizza delivery boy can walk, run, roll and perform impressive somersaulting leaps. He is armed with a limited amount of Noid Avoiders, which when activated remove all Noids from the screen. Each screen consists of three floors; the player runs right on the first, takes the elevator up to the second, runs left, takes the elevator up to the third, and runs right once more. Hidden trapdoors are plentiful, dropping the player down to the next lower floor. Various pieces of classical music play on each screen.

Within the elevators, the player is safe - but Noids often run out of them and attempt to knock the player down in the corridors. If not avoided by jumping or rolling, the protagonist is stunned and the Noid will then proceed to destroy the pizza. When all pizzas are gone the game ends. Later rooms include heat-seeking (i.e. pizza-seeking) missiles being fired from the doors, as well as Noids wielding bazookas. After losing a life, the player is treated to a close-up of a sneering Noid.

Several elevators are locked, requiring the player to find keys. These are hidden in the coin return slot of the various phones that hang on the wall. Certain other phones contain a digit, three of which are required for a digital lock near the top floor. However, the player must listen carefully to the phone ringing; searching a wrong phone causes a Noid (on the other end of the line) to blow up the phone, destroying your pizza once more. Ironically, one of the topmost phones in the building contains two bonus pizzas. Finally, to open the door to the penthouse where the pizza is to be delivered, the player must visit the roof to obtain three more keys. Noids come by in planes and drop water balloons (with impressive splash damage); needless to say, water ruins your pizza.>>