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APOD: IC 1805: The Heart Nebula in HDR (2011 Oct 25)

Posted: Tue Oct 25, 2011 4:06 am
by APOD Robot
Image IC 1805: The Heart Nebula in HDR

Explanation: What powers the Heart Nebula? The large emission nebula dubbed IC 1805 looks, in whole, like a human heart. The nebula glows brightly in red light emitted by its most prominent element: hydrogen. The red glow and the larger shape are all created by a small group of stars near the nebula's center. A close up in high dynamic range (HDR) spanning about 30 light years contains many of these stars is shown above. This open cluster of stars contains a few bright stars nearly 50 times the mass of our Sun, many dim stars only a fraction of the mass of our Sun, and an absent microquasar that was expelled millions of years ago. The Heart Nebula is located about 7,500 light years away toward the constellation of Cassiopeia.

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Re: APOD: IC 1805: The Heart Nebula in HDR (2011 Oct 25)

Posted: Tue Oct 25, 2011 4:28 am
by cketter
Beautiful picture. Amazing detial.

Looking at these nebulae everyday, it's easy to forget that they are less dense than the best vacuum we can draw in a lab. Nonetheless, our stellar viewing distance rewards us with these magnificent views.

Wonderful APOD!

Re: APOD: IC 1805: The Heart Nebula in HDR (2011 Oct 25)

Posted: Tue Oct 25, 2011 12:37 pm
by neufer
http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/obituaries/wilson-greatbatch-engineer-who-invented-implantable-pacemaker-dies-at-92/2011/09/28/gIQAKEtp5K_print.html wrote:
Image
Wilson Greatbatch, co-inventor of implantable pacemaker, dies at 92
By T. Rees Shapiro, Published: September 28

<<Wilson Greatbatch, an electrical engineer who helped develop the first implantable pacemaker, a revolutionary device that since the 1960s has pumped life into millions of people, died Sept. 27 at a nursing home in Williamsville, N.Y. He was 92. For his contributions to science, Mr. Greatbatch received the National Technology Medal in 1990 from President George H.W. Bush. He was inducted into the National Inventors Hall of Fame in 1986.

Mr. Greatbatch, an incurable tinkerer who constructed a radio transmitter at 16, held more than 300 patents, and his inventions largely shaped modern cardiology. Mr. Greatbatch was inspired to research new battery technology after observing that standard pacemaker batteries filled with zinc and mercury had to be replaced every two years. In 1970, Mr. Greatbatch formed his own company to make lithium iodine batteries for pacemakers. His batteries often lasted more than 10 years. Beyond the implantable pacemaker, Mr. Greatbatch introduced the use of compact, long-lasting lithium batteries to the device. His company’s batteries at one time provided power to 90 percent of all pacemakers and were used by NASA to power equipment for space shuttle missions.

Wilson Greatbatch was born Sept. 6, 1919, in Buffalo. He became fascinated with electronics as a teenager and trained as an amateur radio operator. During World War II, he served as a Navy radio repairman and rear gunner on bomber sorties. On the GI Bill, he graduated from Cornell University in 1950 with a bachelor’s degree in electrical engineering. The first pacemakers were being built in the early 1950s. Some early designs were the size of a television and needed to be plugged into a wall socket. Another pacemaker designed by Earl Bakken in the late 1950s was smaller, powered by batteries and worn around the neck.

Mr. Greatbatch was an assistant professor of electrical engineering at the University of Buffalo when, in 1956, he accidentally devised what is considered one of medicine’s most significant achievements. At the time, he was tasked with building equipment to monitor heart sounds when he placed the wrong transistor into the instrument. The transistor — 100 times more powerful than those he usually used — emitted an electrical pulse that mimicked the rhythm of the human heart. He immediately realized the device’s potential as a new kind of pacemaker. His idea was to use new transistor technology to make a pacemaker that could survive inside the patient’s body.

Working in his barn workshop, warmed by a wood-fire stove, Mr. Greatbatch spent two years developing his prototypes. In 1958, he presented his devices to William Chardack, a surgeon at Buffalo’s Veterans Administration Hospital, and the two became collaborators. That year, Mr. Greatbatch and Chardack wired a pacemaker composed of two Texas Instruments transistors to the heart of a dog. The device, which was slightly larger than a hockey puck and weighed half a pound, flawlessly controlled the animal’s heartbeat.

“I seriously doubt if anything I ever do will ever give me the elation I felt that day when my own two cubic inch piece of electronic design controlled a living heart,” Mr. Greatbatch wrote in a diary afterward.

Mr. Greatbatch and Chardack continued to experiment with the design to make it more efficient. One dog lived 104 days with one of the devices. But the device had its flaws, Jeffrey said. Bodily fluids often permeated through the pacemaker’s protective casing and destroyed the electronics. Despite their device’s imperfections, Mr. Greatbatch and Chardack began implanting the pacemakers into humans in 1960. Those considered for the surgery had only a 50 percent chance of surviving without intervention.

“The argument was that the people were close to death and would not survive many days or even hours without help,” Jeffrey said. “Even though the pacemaker was untested and had its problems, Greatbatch and Chardack said it was better than the alternative.”

The first patient, a 77-year-old man, lived 18 months with the pacemaker. Another patient was a young man who had collapsed at his job in a rubber factory. The pacemaker enabled him to live 30 more years and enjoy a new profession as a hairdresser.

Mr. Greatbatch licensed his device to Medtronic, which was co-founded by Bakken. Today, Medtronic is one of the world’s largest medical device companies and a leading manufacturer of pacemakers — all derived from Mr. Greatbatch’s first designs.

In his later years, Mr. Greatbatch researched renewable energy. On his 72nd birthday, he sailed 150 miles in New York’s Finger Lakes in a solar-powered canoe he invented.>>

Re: APOD: IC 1805: The Heart Nebula in HDR (2011 Oct 25)

Posted: Tue Oct 25, 2011 1:37 pm
by orin stepanek
APOD Robot wrote: looks, in whole, like a human heart.

That is does! Also is a great picture and good background material. 8-)

Re: APOD: IC 1805: The Heart Nebula in HDR (2011 Oct 25)

Posted: Tue Oct 25, 2011 2:49 pm
by Beyond
neufer wrote: Mr. Greatbatch
Mr. Greatbatch's achievements seem to fit his name. He seems to have produced a greatbatch of things. Although I'm pretty sure that he never dealt with something as big as The Heart Nebula. No-one makes a big enough battery for that.
My mother had one of those Medtronic pacemakers implanted when she developed 'heart-block' many years ago. It was mostly monitered over the phone. Because she had dementia, i was the one who got to do the little things that had to be done with the monitor on this end.

IC 1805 Art(ill)ery Batteries?

Posted: Tue Oct 25, 2011 2:56 pm
by neufer
Image
Beyond wrote:.

Mr. Greatbatch's achievements seem to fit his name. He seems to have produced a greatbatch of things. Although I'm pretty sure that he never dealt with something as big as The Heart Nebula. No-one makes a big enough battery for that.

My mother had one of those Medtronic pacemakers implanted when she developed 'heart-block' many years ago. It was mostly monitered over the phone. Because she had dementia, i was the one who got to do the little things that had to be done with the monitor on this end.
So you just basically phoned it in?

Re: APOD: IC 1805: The Heart Nebula in HDR (2011 Oct 25)

Posted: Tue Oct 25, 2011 3:46 pm
by Beyond
Well, yeah. The monitoring team sets up a schedule with decreasing time between monitorings as it gets closer to the end of expected battery life. They give you the day and time that they will call for the monitoring, so you can get everything ready. If they don't call, after at least an hour has gone by, then you call them.

By the way, those artillery batteries are w--a--y to small to affect The Heart Nebula in any way what-so-ever.

Re: APOD: IC 1805: The Heart Nebula in HDR (2011 Oct 25)

Posted: Tue Oct 25, 2011 6:47 pm
by Boomer12k
And it is even underlined as if to note its importance....

:-----===== *

Re: APOD: IC 1805: The Heart Nebula in HDR (2011 Oct 25)

Posted: Tue Oct 25, 2011 10:45 pm
by neptunium
orin stepanek wrote:
APOD Robot wrote: looks, in whole, like a human heart.

That is does! Also is a great picture and good background material. 8-)
It looked like a butterfly to me at first.

Re: APOD: IC 1805: The Heart Nebula in HDR (2011 Oct 25)

Posted: Wed Oct 26, 2011 12:04 am
by saturn2
Distance from Earth to Heart Nebula 7,500 light-years.
IC 1805 look like a human heart.
The Universe is a "complet artist"
The Nebulas have many gas and energy of few age stars

Re: APOD: IC 1805: The Heart Nebula in HDR (2011 Oct 25)

Posted: Wed Oct 26, 2011 5:05 am
by mactavish
Your link (i.e. “shown above") apparently requires a Yahoo! account. Why?
I suggest you do not use links to sites that require an account or membership.

Re: APOD: IC 1805: The Heart Nebula in HDR (2011 Oct 25)

Posted: Wed Oct 26, 2011 10:35 am
by bystander
mactavish wrote:Your link (i.e. “shown above") apparently requires a Yahoo! account. Why?
I suggest you do not use links to sites that require an account or membership.
The problem is not that you need a Yahoo! account, but, for whatever reason, Daniel chose to make the linked photostream private.
The link here has been changed to Daniel's homepage on Flickr.

Re: APOD: IC 1805: The Heart Nebula in HDR (2011 Oct 25)

Posted: Wed Oct 26, 2011 11:10 am
by DavidLeodis
bystander wrote:
mactavish wrote:Your link (i.e. “shown above") apparently requires a Yahoo! account. Why?
I suggest you do not use links to sites that require an account or membership.
The problem is not that you need a Yahoo! account, but, for whatever reason, Daniel chose to make the linked photostream private.
The link here has been changed to Daniel's homepage on Flickr.
Currently at least the "shown above" link in the explanation to the APOD still brings up the need to sign into such as a Yahoo account or Facebook. I would not therefore have known of the link here to Daniel's section in Flickr if I had not gone into the 'Discuss an APOD' website.