APOD: Stars in a Dusty Sky (2012 Sep 28)

[APOD Robot]

Stars in a Dusty Sky

Explanation: Bright star Markab anchors this dusty skyscape. At the top right corner of the frame, Markab itself marks a corner of an asterism known as the Great Square, found within the boundaries of the constellation Pegasus, the flying horse. The wide and deep telescopic view rides along for some 5 degrees or about 10 times the angular diameter of the Full Moon, with blue reflection nebulae scattered around the scene. And even though this line-of-sight looks away from the plane of our Milky Way galaxy, it covers a region known to be filled with nearby molecular clouds. The associated dust clouds, high latitude galactic cirrus, are less than 1,000 light-years distant. Still apparent, but far beyond the Milky Way, are background galaxies, like the prominent edge-on spiral NGC 7497 near picture center.

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[geckzilla]

I really like this.

[Ann]

I only have time for a very short comment. This is a beautiful, brilliant picture!

Ann

[Boomer12k]

Guess it is the cleaning lady's week off....

Awesome Pic....

:---[===] *

[Mactavish]

Excellent image. This is as close to 3D as you can get in only two dimensions.

[orin stepanek]

The big blue star adds to the beauty of this photo!

[sage]

Another spectacular view! The latest pictures have given me a real sense of nearness of some features and others deep behind. (that's not worded too well, but it's early here, still not even sunrise )

To the left of the edge on galaxxy..

[Chris Peterson]

To the left of the edge on galaxxy..

No, just a clump of dust. It's way too bright to be a gravitationally lensed structure (which would be caused by a very distant galaxy or galaxy cluster bending the light of an even more distant galaxy).

[neufer]

• No, just a clump of dust.

<<Dust bunnies (or dustbunnies), also called dust mice, are small clumps of dust that form in constellations that are not cleaned regularly. They are made of hair, lint, dead skin, spider webs, dust, and sometimes light rubbish and debris, and are held together by static electricity and felt-like entanglement. They can house dust mites or other parasites, and can lower the efficiency of dust filters by clogging. The movement of a single large particle can start the formation of a dust bunny. Dust bunnies have been used as an analogy for the accretion of cosmic matter in planetoids.>>

[Starswarm Magellan]

Per usual, APOD describes such phenomenon by distance and location relative to familiar constellations. Yet that still leaves poor Starswarm scratching his punkin. It would be informative to have an APOD Milky Way road map as seen from above illustrating the locations and distances of objects relative to Earth as well as one another. Does that make sense and seem relevant or am I simply a knuckle dragging mouth breather knowing not his hole from an ass on the ground? The jury's still out around the neighborhood. PS in a previous post the Red Hot Chili Peppers song mentioning the dinga dong ding (aka blue moon) in the lyric is "All Around The World" not "Scar Tissue" as I wrongly stated. Both songs are from the most excellent Californication record. All apologies...

[sage]

It's way too bright to be a gravitationally lensed structure

Thank you Chris! I shall pay closer attention to studying the next one featured (and it's companion links)

Woe is me, I know dust bunnies too well, neufer