APOD: Wolf's Cave Nebula (2022 Nov 15)

Comments and questions about the APOD on the main view screen.
Post Reply
User avatar
APOD Robot
Otto Posterman
Posts: 5345
Joined: Fri Dec 04, 2009 3:27 am
Contact:

APOD: Wolf's Cave Nebula (2022 Nov 15)

Post by APOD Robot » Tue Nov 15, 2022 5:06 am

Image Wolf's Cave Nebula

Explanation: The mysterious blue reflection nebula found in catalogs as VdB 152 or Ced 201 really is very faint. It lies at the tip of the long dark nebula Barnard 175 in a dusty complex that has also been called Wolf's Cave. At the center of this deep telescopic view, the cosmic apparitions are nearly 1,400 light-years away along the northern Milky Way in the royal constellation Cepheus. Interstellar dust in the region blocks light from background stars and scatters light from the embedded bright star, giving the end nebula its characteristic blue color. Though stars do form in molecular clouds, this star seems to have only accidentally wandered into the area, as its measured velocity through space is very different from the cloud's velocity. At the image bottom is the planetary nebula Dengel-Hartl 5, while red glowing gas from an ancient supernova remnant is also visible along the image's right side.

<< Previous APOD This Day in APOD Next APOD >>

User avatar
Ann
4725 Å
Posts: 13374
Joined: Sat May 29, 2010 5:33 am

Re: APOD: Wolf's Cave Nebula (2022 Nov 15)

Post by Ann » Tue Nov 15, 2022 7:02 am


Beautiful image! The red details really make this image shine. Yes, I do like red sometimes, when it doesn't take over too much from the other colors, and particularly when there is some blue in the image to set it off!


Note the small bluish gray lenticular cloud above the "head" (or the mouth?) of the Wolf Cave Nebula:

Detail from APOD 15 November 2022.png
Lentcular clouds above the Wolf's Cave Nebula.

As for the star lighting up the Wolf's Cave Nebula in blue, we are told in the caption that the star just blundered in there:
APOD Robot wrote:

Interstellar dust in the region blocks light from background stars and scatters light from the embedded bright star, giving the end nebula its characteristic blue color. Though stars do form in molecular clouds, this star seems to have only accidentally wandered into the area, as its measured velocity through space is very different from the cloud's velocity.
That's curious. When I googled the star, BD+69 1231, Simbad Astronomical Database called it a young stellar object. I don't expect a young stellar object that has just recently emerged from its birth cocoon to leave its birthplace and just blunder into the best possible other birthplace for young stars some distance away.

The Wolf's Cave Nebula, vdB 152, looks like it might give birth to low-mass stars. Note the dark dust lane just below the bright blue reflection nebula. We expect stars to form from concentrated molecular clouds which look dark because of the presence of dust.

Take a look at this APOD from 2013 by Roberto Colombari, featuring the Pleiades:


The Pleiades have indeed just blundered into an unrelated dust cloud and lit it up. But the stars of the Pleiades are not young stellar objects. They are mature stars, about 100 million years old, and the brightest of the Pleiades are evolving off the main sequence.

Note, too, that although we can see a lot of dust in Roberto Colombari's image, there is no concentrated dark dust anywhere. There is nothing there that loks like a potential birthplace for stars.

But the Wolf's Cave Nebula looks like it might be just that.

Ann
Color Commentator

User avatar
orin stepanek
Plutopian
Posts: 8200
Joined: Wed Jul 27, 2005 3:41 pm
Location: Nebraska

Re: APOD: Wolf's Cave Nebula (2022 Nov 15)

Post by orin stepanek » Tue Nov 15, 2022 2:07 pm

WolfsCave_Lacroce_960.jpg
Ah; The wolf's cave! Is there a wolf star around? I don't Think wolves
live in a cave, thou I could be wrong! It Kinda; sorta, looks like a
bird to me ready to peck! I supose the birds eye would be the the
mouth of the cave! Can you see any wolves in it? Wolfs? :mrgreen: 😈
image.jpg
I noticed the Hartl name attached to this image; I have cousins with
that name! 😎
Orin

Smile today; tomorrow's another day!

whatwhere

Re: APOD: Wolf's Cave Nebula (2022 Nov 15)

Post by whatwhere » Tue Nov 15, 2022 4:02 pm

Where is the wolf? Where is the cave?
If anything, I see a young penguin (white face, beak, trail of bubbles after a dive or upturn).

whatwhere

Re: APOD: Wolf's Cave Nebula (2022 Nov 15)

Post by whatwhere » Tue Nov 15, 2022 4:06 pm

...Also an upswept wing. Almost uncanny, to be fair. Dare I say, un-canine! :lol2:
But really, where is the wolf? Where is the cave?

beryllium732
Ensign
Posts: 44
Joined: Thu Aug 05, 2021 12:24 am

Re: APOD: Wolf's Cave Nebula (2022 Nov 15)

Post by beryllium732 » Tue Nov 15, 2022 8:01 pm

The blue bright stars a top of the nebula are they also at the same 1400 light years distance?

heehaw

Re: APOD: Wolf's Cave Nebula (2022 Nov 15)

Post by heehaw » Tue Nov 15, 2022 9:37 pm

Ooops! Someone dropped a medical-test sample on that nice astronomical photograph

User avatar
johnnydeep
Commodore
Posts: 2781
Joined: Sun Feb 20, 2011 8:57 pm

Re: APOD: Wolf's Cave Nebula (2022 Nov 15)

Post by johnnydeep » Tue Nov 15, 2022 10:35 pm

whatwhere wrote: Tue Nov 15, 2022 4:06 pm ...Also an upswept wing. Almost uncanny, to be fair. Dare I say, un-canine! :lol2:
But really, where is the wolf? Where is the cave?
The "Wolf" here is just the last name of the astronomer who got the credit for his assistant's discovery. From the "Wolf's Cave" link in the description:
Max Wolf's assistant, August Kopff, photographically discovered the complex structure on October 21, 1908. To Wolf, it looked like a cave and he started calling it the Cave Nebula. Wolf also thought the nebula was an actual cave formation in the Milky Way stars. It was finally designated as vdB 152 and is still sometimes called Wolf's Cave.

Here is Max Wolf's Dec. 1908 announcement in the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, Vol. 69, p.117
--
"To B̬̻̋̚o̞̮̚̚l̘̲̀᷾d̫͓᷅ͩḷ̯᷁ͮȳ͙᷊͠ Go......Beyond The F͇̤i̙̖e̤̟l̡͓d͈̹s̙͚ We Know."{ʲₒʰₙNYᵈₑᵉₚ}

whatwhere

Re: APOD: Wolf's Cave Nebula (2022 Nov 15)

Post by whatwhere » Wed Nov 16, 2022 12:11 am

johnnydeep wrote: Tue Nov 15, 2022 10:35 pm ...The "Wolf" here is just the last name of the astronomer who got the credit for his assistant's discovery. From the "Wolf's Cave" link in the description...
Well, now I feel silly! :oops: I've often been frustrated when I see people that don't read a post fully, including the links provided, then comment in ignorance! :lol2: Somehow today was my turn. My own searches did not provide an answer. Apologies to all!

I must also express gratitude that someone (you) responded regardless!

I also see many posts that ask, "Where is the [insert name here]?" in the image, and no one cares to share. Though, I imagine so many that frequent this site, do actually know the answers.

Thank you!

P.S. I still don't see a cave! :lol2:

User avatar
orin stepanek
Plutopian
Posts: 8200
Joined: Wed Jul 27, 2005 3:41 pm
Location: Nebraska

Re: APOD: Wolf's Cave Nebula (2022 Nov 15)

Post by orin stepanek » Wed Nov 16, 2022 3:42 am

The "Wolf" here is just the last name of the astronomer who got the credit for his assistant's discovery. From the "Wolf's Cave" link in the description:
Max Wolf's assistant, August Kopff, photographically discovered the complex structure on October 21, 1908. To Wolf, it looked like a cave and he started calling it the Cave Nebula. Wolf also thought the nebula was an actual cave formation in the Milky Way stars. It was finally designated as vdB 152 and is still sometimes called Wolf's Cave.

Here is Max Wolf's Dec. 1908 announcement in the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, Vol. 69, p.117
[/quote]
Well; I must confess that I was looking for a Wolf Star! I even read the Max Wolf's Cave Nebula story! :oops: I still think it look's like a bird! I can also see a cave' with the bird's eye being the entrance of the cave! :D
Orin

Smile today; tomorrow's another day!

User avatar
Ann
4725 Å
Posts: 13374
Joined: Sat May 29, 2010 5:33 am

Re: APOD: Wolf's Cave Nebula (2022 Nov 15)

Post by Ann » Wed Nov 16, 2022 5:03 am

beryllium732 wrote: Tue Nov 15, 2022 8:01 pm The blue bright stars a top of the nebula are they also at the same 1400 light years distance?
The bright blue star at the top of the nebula, SAO 10287 or BD+69 1231, has a Gaia parallax of 2.6998 ± 0.0139 milliarcseconds, which puts it at a distance of ~1,200 light-years.

And yes, the nebula is at the same distance as the star, because it is the star that lights up the nebula.

The star, by the way, is not all that extremely bright. It is similar to Sirius in brightness, so that it is some ~21 times brighter than the Sun. Admittedly it would look a bit brighter if it wasn't surrounded by a nebula, because it has "lost" some light to the nebula by lighting it up. But it still isn't "super-bright".

Ann
Color Commentator

User avatar
VictorBorun
Captain
Posts: 1025
Joined: Fri Oct 16, 2020 10:25 pm
Contact:

Re: APOD: Wolf's Cave Nebula (2022 Nov 15)

Post by VictorBorun » Wed Nov 16, 2022 7:23 am

Ann wrote: Wed Nov 16, 2022 5:03 am
beryllium732 wrote: Tue Nov 15, 2022 8:01 pm The blue bright stars a top of the nebula are they also at the same 1400 light years distance?
The bright blue star at the top of the nebula, SAO 10287 or BD+69 1231, has a Gaia parallax of 2.6998 ± 0.0139 milliarcseconds, which puts it at a distance of ~1,200 light-years.

And yes, the nebula is at the same distance as the star, because it is the star that lights up the nebula.

The star, by the way, is not all that extremely bright. It is similar to Sirius in brightness, so that it is some ~21 times brighter than the Sun. Admittedly it would look a bit brighter if it wasn't surrounded by a nebula, because it has "lost" some light to the nebula by lighting it up. But it still isn't "super-bright".

Ann
I wonder why the dusty tail is curved like Sun's protuberance of plasma and magnetic field lines.
Can it be a smooth rotation of the stellar wind as the giant stars were passing through the space at the top of this APOD? If those giants are moving right to left, the direction of tail-blowing was rotating counter-clockwise

User avatar
VictorBorun
Captain
Posts: 1025
Joined: Fri Oct 16, 2020 10:25 pm
Contact:

Re: APOD: Wolf's Cave Nebula (2022 Nov 15)

Post by VictorBorun » Wed Nov 16, 2022 7:34 am

WolfsCave_Lacroce_3053 -.jpg
Ann wrote: Tue Nov 15, 2022 7:02 am Note the small bluish gray lenticular cloud above the "head" (or the mouth?) of the Wolf Cave Nebula:
Detail from APOD 15 November 2022.png
Lentcular clouds above the Wolf's Cave Nebula.
I am totally at lost trying to think of a reason how the interstellar gas can imitate a lenticular cloud in the wind trail above a mountain

User avatar
johnnydeep
Commodore
Posts: 2781
Joined: Sun Feb 20, 2011 8:57 pm

Re: APOD: Wolf's Cave Nebula (2022 Nov 15)

Post by johnnydeep » Wed Nov 16, 2022 12:46 pm

whatwhere wrote: Wed Nov 16, 2022 12:11 am
johnnydeep wrote: Tue Nov 15, 2022 10:35 pm ...The "Wolf" here is just the last name of the astronomer who got the credit for his assistant's discovery. From the "Wolf's Cave" link in the description...
Well, now I feel silly! :oops: I've often been frustrated when I see people that don't read a post fully, including the links provided, then comment in ignorance! Somehow today was my turn. My own searches did not provide an answer. Apologies to all!

I must also express gratitude that someone (you) responded regardless!
No problem. I try to answer the questions I can if no one else has done so already. "There are no silly questions" as my teachers used to say.
I also see many posts that ask, "Where is the [insert name here]?" in the image, and no one cares to share. Though, I imagine so many that frequent this site, do actually know the answers.

Thank you!

P.S. I still don't see a cave! :lol2:
Yeah, I see no 'cave' either. Keep in mind that what people can see and imagine is highly dependent on the quality and resolving power of the optics used to take the image, as well as the particular filters used (if any) to restrict the output to specific wavelengths of light, and different optics can result in the emphasis (or even total absence) of radically different looking features. What might be evocative of a "wizard" or "flower" or "cave" in 1908, might be entirely lost in a modern image. And of course, sometimes, features simply get named after the discoverer. :-)
--
"To B̬̻̋̚o̞̮̚̚l̘̲̀᷾d̫͓᷅ͩḷ̯᷁ͮȳ͙᷊͠ Go......Beyond The F͇̤i̙̖e̤̟l̡͓d͈̹s̙͚ We Know."{ʲₒʰₙNYᵈₑᵉₚ}

User avatar
Ann
4725 Å
Posts: 13374
Joined: Sat May 29, 2010 5:33 am

Re: APOD: Wolf's Cave Nebula (2022 Nov 15)

Post by Ann » Wed Nov 16, 2022 4:04 pm

VictorBorun wrote: Wed Nov 16, 2022 7:34 am WolfsCave_Lacroce_3053 -.jpg
Ann wrote: Tue Nov 15, 2022 7:02 am Note the small bluish gray lenticular cloud above the "head" (or the mouth?) of the Wolf Cave Nebula:
Detail from APOD 15 November 2022.png
Lentcular clouds above the Wolf's Cave Nebula.
I am totally at lost trying to think of a reason how the interstellar gas can imitate a lenticular cloud in the wind trail above a mountain

Remember the Mandelbrot set? Where copies of the same shape are repeated at smaller and smaller (and maybe larger and larger) scales?


Maybe there are lenticular clouds above vdB 152 because there is a "wind trail" above a "mountain" below it - and that "mountain" is precisely the elongated cloud of gas and dust that is vdB 152?

Ann
Color Commentator

whatwhere

Re: APOD: Wolf's Cave Nebula (2022 Nov 15)

Post by whatwhere » Wed Nov 16, 2022 4:42 pm

johnnydeep wrote: Wed Nov 16, 2022 12:46 pm Yeah, I see no 'cave' either. Keep in mind that what people can see and imagine is highly dependent on the quality and resolving power of the optics used to take the image, as well as the particular filters used (if any) to restrict the output to specific wavelengths of light, and different optics can result in the emphasis (or even total absence) of radically different looking features. What might be evocative of a "wizard" or "flower" or "cave" in 1908, might be entirely lost in a modern image. And of course, sometimes, features simply get named after the discoverer. :-)
Yes! I don't imagine many people in 1908, let alone the few astronomers, had seen the underwater action of diving penguins. Otherwise it may very well have been named The Penguin!

User avatar
Fred the Cat
Theoretic Apothekitty
Posts: 959
Joined: Mon Feb 22, 2016 4:09 pm
AKA: Ron
Location: Eagle, Idaho

Re: APOD: Wolf's Cave Nebula (2022 Nov 15)

Post by Fred the Cat » Wed Nov 16, 2022 5:56 pm

VictorBorun wrote: Wed Nov 16, 2022 7:34 am
WolfsCave_Lacroce_3053 -.jpg
Ann wrote: Tue Nov 15, 2022 7:02 am Note the small bluish gray lenticular cloud above the "head" (or the mouth?) of the Wolf Cave Nebula:
Detail from APOD 15 November 2022.png
Lentcular clouds above the Wolf's Cave Nebula.
I am totally at lost trying to think of a reason how the interstellar gas can imitate a lenticular cloud in the wind trail above a mountain
Given an appetite for such things, I might label the nebula; " Jaws of a Sandworm".

Hungry for anything to spice up its existence. :chomp:

On second thought, I don't think I " otter". :ssmile:
Freddy's Felicity "Only ascertain as a cat box survivor"

User avatar
Chris Peterson
Abominable Snowman
Posts: 18113
Joined: Wed Jan 31, 2007 11:13 pm
Location: Guffey, Colorado, USA
Contact:

Re: APOD: Wolf's Cave Nebula (2022 Nov 15)

Post by Chris Peterson » Thu Nov 17, 2022 1:42 am

VictorBorun wrote: Wed Nov 16, 2022 7:34 am I am totally at lost trying to think of a reason how the interstellar gas can imitate a lenticular cloud in the wind trail above a mountain
Easy. Pareidolia.
Chris

*****************************************
Chris L Peterson
Cloudbait Observatory
https://www.cloudbait.com

beryllium732
Ensign
Posts: 44
Joined: Thu Aug 05, 2021 12:24 am

Re: APOD: Wolf's Cave Nebula (2022 Nov 15)

Post by beryllium732 » Thu Nov 17, 2022 7:15 pm

Ann wrote: Wed Nov 16, 2022 5:03 am
beryllium732 wrote: Tue Nov 15, 2022 8:01 pm The blue bright stars a top of the nebula are they also at the same 1400 light years distance?
The bright blue star at the top of the nebula, SAO 10287 or BD+69 1231, has a Gaia parallax of 2.6998 ± 0.0139 milliarcseconds, which puts it at a distance of ~1,200 light-years.

And yes, the nebula is at the same distance as the star, because it is the star that lights up the nebula.

The star, by the way, is not all that extremely bright. It is similar to Sirius in brightness, so that it is some ~21 times brighter than the Sun. Admittedly it would look a bit brighter if it wasn't surrounded by a nebula, because it has "lost" some light to the nebula by lighting it up. But it still isn't "super-bright".

Ann
Thank you! I wish there were a mouse clickable picture like the one the Deep Field pictures Hubble took so you can click on any galaxy and see the distance and redshift of it.

starsurfer
Stellar Cartographer
Posts: 5306
Joined: Thu Mar 15, 2012 7:25 pm

Re: APOD: Wolf's Cave Nebula (2022 Nov 15)

Post by starsurfer » Sun Nov 20, 2022 11:37 pm

Beautiful image! I think this name comes from the fact it was identified by someone called Max Wolf. Also DeHt 5 actually is an example of a PN mimic.

User avatar
Ann
4725 Å
Posts: 13374
Joined: Sat May 29, 2010 5:33 am

Re: APOD: Wolf's Cave Nebula (2022 Nov 15)

Post by Ann » Mon Nov 21, 2022 4:31 am

starsurfer wrote: Sun Nov 20, 2022 11:37 pm Beautiful image! I think this name comes from the fact it was identified by someone called Max Wolf. Also DeHt 5 actually is an example of a PN mimic.
Thanks, starsurfer! :D I wanted you to chime in on DeHt 5. It didn't look like a "true" planetary to me.

Ann
Color Commentator

Post Reply