APOD: Cepheus: Trunk to Bubble (2010 Sep 09)

[APOD Robot]

Cepheus: Trunk to Bubble

Explanation: Star clusters, glowing nebulae and dark dust clouds abound in Cepheus, royal constellation of the northern hemisphere. You can follow them in amazing detail across this broad skyscape, a mosaic of telescopic images spanning about 17 degrees. Beginning at the lower left, the large emission nebula is cataloged as IC 1396. Hundreds of light-years across and about 3,000 light-years distant, it contains a dark, winding, tendril-shaped feature popularly known as the Elephant's Trunk. Near the top middle, the bright nebula with an embedded star cluster is NGC 7380. At the upper right lies NGC 7635 (the Bubble Nebula) and star cluster M52. Put your cursor over the picture to see a labeled version of the field. Many of the objects highlighted have a designation from the second version of the Sharpless catalog (Sh2) and the Barnard catalog (B) of dark nebulae. Associated with star formation, the sites are telltale markers along the region's complex of giant molecular clouds.

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[neufer]

http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap090819.html
http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap050908.html
http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap040805.html
http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap081226.html
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http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap050409.html
http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap070321.html
http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap050930.html
http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap080415.html

[orin stepanek]

I never would have found the bubble without the annotated version. http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap100902.html

[neufer]

http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap060428.html
http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap091030.html
http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap040328.html
http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap051107.html
http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap100902.html
http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap030617.html
http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap040716.html
http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap981117.html
http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap981118.html
http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap000118.html

[neufer]

Cepheus: Trunk to Bubble

Explanation: Star clusters, glowing nebulae and dark dust clouds abound in Cepheus, royal constellation of the northern hemisphere. You can follow them in amazing detail across this broad skyscape, a mosaic of telescopic images spanning about 17 degrees. Beginning at the lower left, the large emission nebula is cataloged as IC 1396. Hundreds of light-years across and about 3,000 light-years distant, it contains a dark, winding, tendril-shaped feature popularly known as the Elephant's Trunk. Near the top middle, the bright nebula with an embedded star cluster is NGC 7380. At the upper right lies NGC 7635 (the Bubble Nebula) and star cluster M52.

Click to play embedded YouTube video.

[biddie67]

There are so many different catalogs that it must be time-consuming to locate a particular star's catalog name(s). Is there some master catalog keyed by an object's celestrial coordinates (or some such positional ID) that will give their catalog name(s) - along with other attributes such as size, apparent distance, type, etc.?

The picture is amazing - I really like the overlay with all the identifiers.

[owlice]

One catalog to rule them all!

neufer, I enjoyed the YouTube WAY more than I had any right to! The creativity is fabulous.

[Chris Peterson]

There are so many different catalogs that it must be time-consuming to locate a particular star's catalog name(s). Is there some master catalog keyed by an object's celestrial coordinates (or some such positional ID) that will give their catalog name(s) - along with other attributes such as size, apparent distance, type, etc.?

Many objects are found in multiple catalogs, so the choice of which to list is somewhat arbitrary. There are several online catalog tools that accept information about an object, such as its coordinates, and return a list of all cataloged items nearby. These include the NED Database, SIMBAD, and VizieR. Tools like these generally make it pretty easy to identify an object, and determine what catalog or catalogs it is listed in (as well as references to papers about the object).

Many starcharting programs (some of which are free software) also contain extensive catalogs, and can directly produce plots like the overlay seen on today's APOD.

[biddie67]

Thanks, Chris - what a treasure trove of information in those 3 DB's. They are like a snapshot of the enormous range of exploration/research of the universe and the resulting organization of gathered info. For starters, I really liked the huge glossary in the NED DB .....

What a basis for a college course!! I'd love to take a survey course (it would have to be relatively superficial for me - probably frustratingly so for those already in the field ) that explained what some of the elements referenced in them were all about. (( HINT HINT :: to the Teaching Company and Alex Filippenko ))

[Ann]

Congratulations to Rogelio Bernal Andreo, who deservedly got another APOD. This is a great portrait of the dusty, rosy-nebular and starforming constellation of Cepheus, the King. I should know that this constellation is dusty - when I spent a few months some years ago checking up the color indexes of hot stars all over the sky, I was frustrated that the numerous hot young stars in Cepheus were so reddened. Well, today's APOD shows you why. Talk about dark dust and red Hα light diluting the blue light of hot young stars in the Constellation of the King!

Ann

[enb]

Does anybody else notice the extra "star" that appears when they mouseover the image? It is to the left and slightly below B165, about halfway between it and the elephant trunk.

[mexhunter]

Congratulations to Rogelio for this one extraordinary mosaic.
He has become an expert in this work as thorough and elegant, as the simple union of two or more heavenly photos are very complicated, but in it are 12 frames together, that's a very high degree of difficulty.
Many grettings
César

http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap100719.html
http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap100524.html
http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap100319.html
http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap100214.html
http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap091229.html
http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap091103.html
http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap090521.html
http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap090312.html

[hstarbuck]

Does anybody else notice the extra "star" that appears when they mouseover the image? It is to the left and slightly below B165, about halfway between it and the elephant trunk.

I see it in the annotated version, but not in the large version. You can follow the bright star to the right of the trunk down and to the right to the next 2 brightest stars. Take a left and it should be right before the next brightest star (#2 of 4 in a crooked row here). Therefore, I would guess it is an artifact of editing--a slip of the ink. Good eye enb.

[neufer]

Cepheus: Trunk to Bubble

Near the top middle, the bright nebula with an embedded star cluster is NGC 7380.

[b]NGC 7380 in classic Hubble Palette ( [color=#0000FF]OIII[/color] / [color=#00FF00]Ha[/color] / [color=#FF0000]SII[/color] ) about the same size but angled 45º from WISE image[/b]

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[b]NGC 7380 from WISE : ( [color=#0000FF]3.4[/color] / [color=#00FFFF]4.6[/color] / [color=#00FF00]12[/color] / [color=#FF0000]22[/color] microns[/b] )

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[Ann]

Well, since Art insisted on giving us two false-color images of NGC 7380, let me counter by showing you a very beautiful true-color image of the same nebula. Note the blue bubble blown by a massive star, likely a Wolf-Rayet star.

Click to view full size image

Ann

[bystander]

Well, since Art insisted on giving us two false-color images of NGC 7380, let me counter by showing you a very beautiful true-color image of the same nebula. Note the blue bubble blown by a massive star, likely a Wolf-Rayet star.

True color?

[Ann]

Click to view full size image

Marilyn Monroe in true Andy Warhol palette.

Ann