APOD: The Eagle and The Swan (2013 May 31)

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APOD: The Eagle and The Swan (2013 May 31)

Post by APOD Robot » Fri May 31, 2013 4:07 am

Image The Eagle and The Swan

Explanation: The Eagle Nebula and the Swan Nebula span this broad starscape, a telescopic view of the Sagittarius spiral arm toward the center of our Milky Way galaxy. The Eagle, also known as M16, is left, above center, and the Swan, or M17 at the lower right. The deep, wide-field image shows the cosmic clouds as brighter regions of active star-formation. They lie along the spiral arm suffused with reddish emission charactistic of atomic hydrogen gas, and dusty dark nebulae. In fact, the center of both nebulae are locations of well-known close-up images of star formation from the Hubble Space Telescope. M17, also called the Omega Nebula, is about 5500 light-years away, while M16 is some 6500 light-years distant. In the frame that covers 3 degrees across the sky, the extended wings of the Eagle Nebula are spread over 120 light-years.

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Ann
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Re: APOD: The Eagle and The Swan (2013 May 31)

Post by Ann » Fri May 31, 2013 4:52 am

What a great APOD! :D

Look at that "champagne flow" that is bursting like a whitish "river" out of the Swan Nebula, M17. The Swan Nebula contains a hidden treasure of several very young hot O-stars, which have just broken through their thick nebular "womb". The incredible energy of their radiation pushes a mixture of photons and protons and what not out of a recent hole in their cocoon. You can almost hear the champagne cork popping!

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SouthEastAsia

Re: APOD: The Eagle and The Swan (2013 May 31)

Post by SouthEastAsia » Fri May 31, 2013 6:37 am

I'm personally seeing more of a Condor and maybe a dove??

No doubt it's in the eye of the beholder and for sure, hats off to whomever ever coins it first!

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Re: APOD: The Eagle and The Swan (2013 May 31)

Post by starsurfer » Fri May 31, 2013 12:59 pm

Wow I've been able to correctly guess each APOD this week from the clue! There is a possibility that M16 and M17 actually constitute a single complex, deep images show them connected together with faint nebulosity. There is a lot of dust in this area, so a lot of optical nebulosity would be blocked. Our galaxy is such an amazing and colourful place! The only rival for beauty are the various nebulae of the LMC, I would love to be able to view the nebulae of M33 or M101 from inside those galaxies!! :D

steve Case

Re: APOD: The Eagle and The Swan (2013 May 31)

Post by steve Case » Fri May 31, 2013 1:10 pm

There's a face in the upper left hand corner, rather large, a young lady
in profile with her eyes closed, but looking to the upper left. Looks like
she's waiting for a kiss (-:

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Re: APOD: The Eagle and The Swan (2013 May 31)

Post by Boomer12k » Fri May 31, 2013 2:13 pm

steve Case wrote:There's a face in the upper left hand corner, rather large, a young lady
in profile with her eyes closed, but looking to the upper left. Looks like
she's waiting for a kiss (-:
Looked, and looked, and looked....and then OH...YES....Not just "upper left hand corner"....the whole Eagle Nebula looks exactly like that....like she is also wearing a head piece, like a crown, and it folds back with her hair...I see it now....she even has a high collar, like in olden times...hmmmm...The Lady Nebula....

Generally I am the one who sees these types of things...see, people, it is not just me!!!! :D

This is a very complex area, and not what I am generally used to seeing, as it is a very wide field.

AWESOME JOB!!!!

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Steve Case

Re: APOD: The Eagle and The Swan (2013 May 31)

Post by Steve Case » Fri May 31, 2013 2:29 pm

Boomer12k wrote:
steve Case wrote:There's a face in the upper left hand corner, rather large, a young lady
in profile with her eyes closed, but looking to the upper left. Looks like
she's waiting for a kiss (-:
Looked, and looked, and looked....and then OH...YES....Not just "upper left hand corner"....the whole Eagle Nebula looks exactly like that....like she is also wearing a head piece, like a crown, and it folds back with her hair...I see it now....she even has a high collar, like in olden times...hmmmm...The Lady Nebula....

Generally I am the one who sees these types of things...see, people, it is not just me!!!! :D

This is a very complex area, and not what I am generally used to seeing, as it is a very wide field.

AWESOME JOB!!!!

:---[===] *
Thanks for seeing her too. Her name is Donalda.

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Re: APOD: The Eagle and The Swan (2013 May 31)

Post by neufer » Fri May 31, 2013 2:31 pm

ImageImage
Art Neuendorffer

Starring

Re: APOD: The Eagle and The Swan (2013 May 31)

Post by Starring » Sat Jun 01, 2013 12:26 am

Boomer12k wrote:
steve Case wrote:There's a face in the upper left hand corner, rather large, a young lady
in profile with her eyes closed, but looking to the upper left. Looks like
she's waiting for a kiss (-:
Looked, and looked, and looked....and then OH...YES....Not just "upper left hand corner"....the whole Eagle Nebula looks exactly like that....like she is also wearing a head piece, like a crown, and it folds back with her hair...I see it now....she even has a high collar, like in olden times...hmmmm...The Lady Nebula....

:---[===] *
Hmmm, and with a beard too? Not sure seeing a young lady, but definitely the closed eyes are keenly awesome!

And while we're at it... is that a little cow in the lower left!! :D

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Re: APOD: The Eagle and The Swan (2013 May 31)

Post by DonB312 » Sat Jun 01, 2013 1:01 am

I love this APOD. So many beautiful things to see.

If you look carefully in the Eagle Nebula you can see the "Pillars of Creation" that were made famous in a well known Hubble image.

Image

The Hubble image: http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap120722.html
Another wonderful image: http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap090710.html

Don
Don

Nic

Re: APOD: The Eagle and The Swan (2013 May 31)

Post by Nic » Sat Jun 01, 2013 2:58 pm

I also see the beautiful lady in M16. I suppose the popular name was given before high quality imaging revealed the details we see. It is our nature to see faces in most everything. Could be a evolutionary relic in our psyche?

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Re: APOD: The Eagle and The Swan (2013 May 31)

Post by neufer » Sat Jun 01, 2013 4:45 pm

Nic wrote:
I also see the beautiful lady in M16. I suppose the popular name was given before high quality imaging revealed the details we see. It is our nature to see faces in most everything. Could be a evolutionary relic in our psyche?
  • Popular names were given before any sort of imaging.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Omega_Nebula wrote: <<The Omega Nebula, also known as the Swan Nebula, Checkmark Nebula, Lobster Nebula, and the Horseshoe Nebula (catalogued as Messier 17 or M17 and as NGC 6618) is an H II region in the constellation Sagittarius. It was discovered by Philippe Loys de Chéseaux in 1745. Charles Messier catalogued it in 1764. It is located in the rich starfields of the Sagittarius area of the Milky Way.

The first attempt to accurately draw the nebula (as part of a series of sketches of nebulae) was made by John Herschel in 1833, and published in 1836. He described the nebula as such:

The figure of this nebula is nearly that of a Greek capital omega, Ω, somewhat distorted, and very unequally bright. ... Messier perceived only the bright eastern branch of the nebula now in question, without any of the attached convolutions which were first noticed by my father. The chief peculiarities which I have observed in it are — 1. The resolvable knot in the eastern portion of the bright branch, which is, in a considerable degree, insulated from the surrounding nebula; strongly suggesting the idea of an absorption of the nebulous matter; and, 2. The much feebler and smaller knot at the northwestern end of the same branch, where the nebula makes a sudden bend at an acute angle.

A second, more detailed sketch was made during his visit to South Africa in 1837. The nebula was also studied by Johann von Lamont and separately by an undergraduate at Yale College, Mr Mason, starting from around 1836. When Herschel published his 1837 sketch in 1847, he wrote:
In particular the large horseshoe-shaped arc … is there represented as too much elongated in a vertical direction and as bearing altogether too large a proportion to [the eastern] streak and to the total magnitude of the object. The nebulous diffusion, too, at the [western] end of that arc, forming the [western] angle and base-line of the capital Greek omega (Ω), to which the general figure of the nebula has been likened, is now so little conspicuous as to induce a suspicion that some real change may have taken place in the relative brightness of this portion compared with the rest of the nebula; seeing that a figure of it made on June 25, 1837, expresses no such diffusion, but represents the arc as breaking off before it even attains fully to the group of small stars at the [western] angle of the Omega. … Under these circumstances the arguments for a real change in the nebula might seem to have considerable weight. Nevertheless, they are weakened or destroyed by a contrary testimony entitled to much reliance. Mr. Mason ... expressly states that both the nebulous knots were well seen by himself and his coadjutor Mr. Smith on August 1, 1839, i.e., two years subsequent to the date of my last drawing. Neither Mr. Mason, however, nor any other observer, appears to have had the least suspicion of the existence of the fainter horseshoe arc attached to the [eastern] extremity of Messier's streak. Dr. Lamont has given a figure of this nebula, accompanied by a description. In this figure [our Fig. 4], the nebulous diffusion at the [western] angle and along the [western] base-line of the Omega is represented as very conspicuous; indeed, much more so than I can persuade myself it was his intention it should appear.

Sketches were also made by William Lassell in 1862 using his four-foot telescope at Malta, and by M. Trouvelot from Cambridge, Massachusetts and Edward Singleton Holden in 1875 using the twenty-six inch Clark refractor at the United States Naval Observatory.>>
Art Neuendorffer

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