APOD: The Great Carina Nebula (2016 May 27)

[APOD Robot]

The Great Carina Nebula

Explanation: A jewel of the southern sky, the Great Carina Nebula, also known as NGC 3372, spans over 300 light-years, one of our galaxy's largest star forming regions. Like the smaller, more northerly Great Orion Nebula, the Carina Nebula is easily visible to the unaided eye, though at a distance of 7,500 light-years it is some 5 times farther away. This gorgeous telescopic close-up reveals remarkable details of the region's central glowing filaments of interstellar gas and obscuring cosmic dust clouds. The field of view is over 50 light-years across. The Carina Nebula is home to young, extremely massive stars, including the stars of open cluster Trumpler 14 (below and right of center) and the still enigmatic variable Eta Carinae, a star with well over 100 times the mass of the Sun. Eta Carinae is the brightest star, seen here just above the dusty Keyhole Nebula (NGC 3324). While Eta Carinae itself maybe on the verge of a supernova explosion, X-ray images indicate that the Great Carina Nebula has been a veritable supernova factory.

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[Ann]

I like this image. I'm glad to see that so much detail and so many colors can be seen in what looks like an RGB image.

One of the little things I like is that some of the free-floating dust clouds have bright outlines, while others don't. To the right of the very obvious, bright, yellow Eta Carina is the large, dark, roundish Keyhole Nebula. And some distance to the right of the Keyhole Nebula is a small free-floating dust cloud that looks a bit like a fat Mickey Mouse. This dust cloud has bright outlines.

And there are many other fantastically shaped dust clouds in the Carina Nebula. At lower right, below the Trumpler 14 cluster, is the region informally known as Loch Ness. Surely you can spot Nessie in there, and Nessie's little brother!

At the upper right of Trumpler 14 is the dust formation known as the Mystic Mountain in a well-known Hubble image.

This is a very nice image!

(There's just one thing... the photographer has written the word COPYRIGHT in pale blue letters below the Keyhole Nebula, right in the middle of the picture. I'm not really happy about it, but it is the copyright holder's choice.)

Ann

[ccdguy]

Thanks for your comments Ann. Sadly I've had my images plagiarised in the past, hence the watermarks. That said, a number of people have got back to me with similar sentiments. As a result you will find a non-water marked version if you click on the "telescopic closeup" hyperlink within the APOD writeup.

All the best
Peter Ward

[geckzilla]

Thanks for your comments Ann. Sadly I've had my images plagiarised in the past, hence the watermarks. That said, a number of people have got back to me with similar sentiments. As a result you will find a non-water marked version if you click on the "telescopic closeup" hyperlink within the APOD writeup.

Peter, have you tried hiding the watermark in just the blue channel? It's easiest to hide in bright yellow areas and some very dark areas. I was messing around the other day by writing a bunch of stuff in the blue channel, posting it to Facebook, and seeing if anyone saw it. The words were "If you can see this, write yup in the comments" and no one wrote yup. Presumably no one saw it. The down side is that it tends to degrade more when JPEG compression runs over it. You can put it in multiple places though to try to make sure it survives.

[heehaw]

None of my comments are copyright.

[NCTom]

By the number of shock waves visible throughout the nebula, I can understand why it may be called a supernova factory or at least a very energetic star forming region.

[zendae]

The star Eta Carinae apparently does something no other star that has been observed can do. It emits UV laser light; the only star that does this. It also has done other strange things. What is going on within ( or from without) this star to cause things that no other star has accomplished? "...the only one..." is always a spicy statement.

[starsurfer]

I would like to mention that the Keyhole Nebula is not catalogued as NGC 3324 and I have seen this mistake replicated through many years on APOD for some reason.

[Astronymus]

Stole the image from the site. Then I noticed the watermark. Useless. Brought it back. It's online again.

Well played, Mr. Space Photographer...

[Boomer12k]

An interesting place, again... right down to the European Number 7 in the middle, with the slash .... or is it a number 3?? Along with the # sign further to the right.... In fact, there are MANY number 7's, and Letters... there is an "A"......OMG!!!!! IT IS A CODE!!!!!! A MESSAGE!!!!!!!!.....Got it.... "We are coming....."..... hope their friendly!!!!!!!!

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