Starship Asterisk*

Nitpicker wrote:However, the numbers quoted in the caption do not appear to add up (to me). The nebula (NGC 7635) is said to be both (absolutely) smaller and further away than the cluster (M52), yet the cluster appears smaller than the nebula.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_Cloud wrote:

[b][color=#0000FF]Seated, L to R: Yellow Bear, Chief Red Cloud, Big Road, Little Wound, Black Crow; Standing, L to R: Red Bear, Young Man Afraid of his Horse, Good Voice, Ring Thunder, Iron Crow, White Tail, Young Spotted Tail, ca. 1860-1880[/color][/b]

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<<Red Cloud (Lakota: Maȟpíya Lúta), (1822 – December 10, 1909) was a chief of the Oglala Lakota (Sioux) from 1868 to 1909. One of the most capable Native American opponents the United States Army faced, he led a successful campaign in 1866–1868 known as Red Cloud's War over control of the Powder River Country in northeastern Wyoming and southern Montana. President John F. Kennedy once considered naming one of the 41 for Freedom ballistic missile submarines after Red Cloud, but apparently bowed to Pentagon concerns that the name could be misinterpreted as being pro-Communist.

Red Cloud was born close to the forks of the Platte River, near the modern-day city of North Platte, Nebraska. His mother, Walks As She Thinks, was an Oglala Lakota and his father, Lone Man, was a Brulé Lakota chief. Red Cloud was mentored as a boy by his maternal uncle, Old Chief Smoke (1774–1864). At a young age, Red Cloud fought against neighboring Pawnee & Crow, gaining much war experience.

In December 1866, Captain William J. Fetterman was sent from Fort Phil Kearny with 79 cavalry to chase away a small Indian war party that had attacked a wood party days before. He disobeyed orders to pursue a small decoy band of warriors, led by an Indian on an apparently injured horse. Fetterman and his troops followed the decoy (a.k.a., Crazy Horse) into a fatal ambush by more than 2,000 Sioux, Cheyenne, and Arapaho. A US peace commission later found that the American Indians had been provoked by white encroachment and recommended assigning definite territories to the Plains tribes. The Lakota, Northern Cheyenne, and Arapaho bands, and others settled for peace with the US under the Treaty of Fort Laramie. In return, the US agreed to abandon its forts and withdraw completely from Lakota territory.

However, in 1874, General George Custer led a reconnaissance mission into Sioux territory that reported gold in the Black Hills, an area held sacred by the local Indians. Formerly, the Army tried to keep miners out but did not succeed; the threat of violence grew. In May 1875, Sioux delegations headed by Red Cloud, Spotted Tail, and Lone Horn traveled to Washington, D.C. in an attempt to persuade President Grant to honor existing treaties and stem the flow of miners into their lands. The Indians met on various occasions with Grant, Secretary of the Interior Delano, and Commissioner of Indian Affairs Smith. He told them on May 27 that Congress was ready to resolve the matter by paying the tribes $25,000 for their land and resettling them into Indian Territory. The delegates refused to sign such a treaty, with Spotted Tail saying about the proposal: “When I was here before, the President gave me my country, and I put my stake down in a good place, and there I want to stay.... You speak of another country, but it is not my country; it does not concern me, and I want nothing to do with it. I was not born there.... If it is such a good country, you ought to send the white men now in our country there and let us alone.”

Although Red Cloud was unsuccessful in finding a peaceful solution, he did not take part in the Lakota war of 1876-1877, which was led by Tȟašúŋke Witkó (Crazy Horse) and Tȟatȟáŋka Íyotake (Sitting Bull). However, Red Cloud became an important leader of the Lakota as they transitioned from the freedom of the plains to the confinement of the reservation system. His trip to Washington, D.C. had convinced him of the number and power of European Americans, and he believed the Oglala had to seek peace. Red Cloud is quoted as saying in his old age, "They made us many promises, more than I can remember. But they kept but one--They promised to take our land...and they took it.">>

Nitpicker wrote:Unless the absolute size of the nebula only refers to the little circular bubble in amongst all the red cloud. Edit: yes, that's what the link in caption says, but is not the nebula considered to be more than just the bubble? Edit again: and would you really say that the small circular bubble balances the cluster to the eye?

Nitpicker wrote:could the Bubble Nebula be thought of as a combination of emission and reflection nebula, covering the circular bubble and the red cloud respectively? Is this reasonable?

Don Bullock wrote:It occurs to me that this picture almost looks like a city viewed from a high altitude with street lights along the roads and a large fire burning at one location. There is a regularity about the "roads" and I wonder how they were formed.