APOD: NGC 6369: The Little Ghost Nebula (2017 Oct 28)

Comments and questions about the APOD on the main view screen.
Post Reply
User avatar
APOD Robot
Otto Posterman
Posts: 5344
Joined: Fri Dec 04, 2009 3:27 am
Contact:

APOD: NGC 6369: The Little Ghost Nebula (2017 Oct 28)

Post by APOD Robot » Sat Oct 28, 2017 4:07 am

Image NGC 6369: The Little Ghost Nebula

Explanation: Wraithlike NGC 6369 is a faint apparition in night skies popularly known as the Little Ghost Nebula. It was discovered by 18th century astronomer Sir William Herschel as he used a telescope to explore the medicinal constellation Ophiucus. Herschel historically classified the round and planet-shaped nebula as a Planetary Nebula. But planetary nebulae in general are not at all related to planets. Instead they are gaseous shrouds created at the end of a sun-like star's life, the dying star's outer layers expanding into space while its core shrinks to become a white dwarf. The transformed white dwarf star, seen near the center, radiates strongly at ultraviolet wavelengths and powers the expanding nebula's glow. Surprisingly complex details and structures of NGC 6369 are revealed in this tantalizing image composed from Hubble Space Telescope data. The nebula's main round structure is about a light-year across and the glow from ionized oxygen, hydrogen, and nitrogen atoms are colored blue, green, and red respectively. Over 2,000 light-years away, the Little Ghost Nebula offers a glimpse of the fate of our Sun, which could produce its own planetary nebula about 5 billion years from now.

<< Previous APOD This Day in APOD Next APOD >>
[/b]

Avent

Re: APOD: NGC 6369: The Little Ghost Nebula (2017 Oct 28)

Post by Avent » Sat Oct 28, 2017 4:18 am

Good job

De58te
Commander
Posts: 583
Joined: Mon Sep 30, 2013 6:35 pm

Re: APOD: NGC 6369: The Little Ghost Nebula (2017 Oct 28)

Post by De58te » Sat Oct 28, 2017 5:19 am

The color is simply ghoulish looking. Reminds me of looking into a witch's boiling cauldron. By the way, sure hope there isn't a witch head nebula out there. That image would simply be spell-bounding.

Boomer12k
:---[===] *
Posts: 2691
Joined: Sun Apr 22, 2007 12:07 am

Re: APOD: NGC 6369: The Little Ghost Nebula (2017 Oct 28)

Post by Boomer12k » Sat Oct 28, 2017 7:21 am

De58te wrote:The color is simply ghoulish looking. Reminds me of looking into a witch's boiling cauldron. By the way, sure hope there isn't a witch head nebula out there. That image would simply be spell-bounding.
Ummm... hate to be the one to break it to you....BUT....
https://www.nasa.gov/multimedia/imagega ... _1209.html

Have a Happy....
:---[===] *

Boomer12k
:---[===] *
Posts: 2691
Joined: Sun Apr 22, 2007 12:07 am

Re: APOD: NGC 6369: The Little Ghost Nebula (2017 Oct 28)

Post by Boomer12k » Sat Oct 28, 2017 7:28 am

Interesting one... also looks like there was an "event", before the "big push"....

:---[===] *

User avatar
neufer
Vacationer at Tralfamadore
Posts: 18805
Joined: Mon Jan 21, 2008 1:57 pm
Location: Alexandria, Virginia

"Wraithlike NGC 6369"

Post by neufer » Sat Oct 28, 2017 12:48 pm

http://heritage.stsci.edu/2002/25/caption.html wrote:
<<The doughnut-shaped blue-green ring represents light from ionized oxygen atoms that have lost two electrons (blue) and from hydrogen atoms that have lost their single electrons (green). Red marks emission from nitrogen atoms that have lost only one electron.>>
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nazg%C3%BBl wrote:

<<The Nazgûl (from Black Speech nazg, "ring", and gûl, "wraith, spirit", possibly related to gul, "sorcery" or a wordplay on "ghoul" ), also called Ringwraiths, Ring-wraiths, Black Riders, Dark Riders, the Nine Riders, or simply the Nine, are fictional characters in J. R. R. Tolkien's Middle-earth legendarium. They were nine men who succumbed to Sauron's power and attained near-immortality as wraiths, servants bound to the power of the One Ring and completely under the dominion of Sauron. The Nazgûl arose as Sauron's most powerful servants in the Second Age of Middle-earth. They were once mortal men; three being "great lords" of Númenor. Sauron gave each of them one of nine Rings of Power. Ultimately, however, they were bound to the One Ring and completely enslaved by the will of Sauron.

Those who used the Nine Rings became mighty in their day, kings, sorcerers, and warriors of old. They obtained glory and great wealth, yet it turned to their undoing. They had, as it seemed, unending life, yet life became unendurable to them. They could walk, if they would, unseen by all eyes in this world beneath the sun, and they could see things in worlds invisible to mortal men; but too often they beheld only the phantoms and delusions of Sauron. And one by one, sooner or later, according to their native strength and to the good or evil of their wills in the beginning, they fell under the thraldom of the ring that they bore and of the domination of the One which was Sauron's. And they became forever invisible save to him that wore the Ruling Ring, and they entered into the realm of shadows. The Nazgûl were they, the Ringwraiths, the Úlairi, the Enemy's most terrible servants; darkness went with them, and they cried with the voices of death.>>
Art Neuendorffer

jisles

Re: APOD: NGC 6369: The Little Ghost Nebula (2017 Oct 28)

Post by jisles » Sat Oct 28, 2017 9:17 pm

It's Ophiuchus, not "Ophiucus".

John

Post Reply