Found Images: 2019 March

See new, spectacular, or mysterious sky images.
User avatar
bystander
Apathetic Retiree
Posts: 21571
Joined: Mon Aug 28, 2006 2:06 pm
Location: Oklahoma

HEIC: Invisible X-rays (Messier 49)

Post by bystander » Mon Mar 18, 2019 3:29 pm

Invisible X-rays (Messier 49)
ESA Hubble Picture of the Week | 2019 Mar 18
This fuzzy orb of light is a giant elliptical galaxy filled with an incredible 200 billion stars. Unlike spiral galaxies, which have a well-defined structure and boast picturesque spiral arms, elliptical galaxies appear fairly smooth and featureless. This is likely why this galaxy, named Messier 49, was discovered by French astronomer Charles Messier in 1771. At a distance of 56 million light-years, and measuring 157 000 light-years across, M49 was the first member of the Virgo Cluster of galaxies to be discovered, and it is more luminous than any other galaxy at its distance or nearer.

Elliptical galaxies tend to contain a larger portion of older stars than spiral galaxies and also lack young blue stars. Messier 49 itself is very yellow, which indicates that the stars within it are mostly older and redder than the Sun. In fact, the last major episode of star formation was about six billion years ago — before the Sun was even born!

Messier 49 is also rich in globular clusters; it hosts about 6000, a number that dwarfs the 150 found in and around the Milky Way. On average, these clusters are 10 billion years old. Messier 49 is also known to host a supermassive black hole at its centre with the mass of more than 500 million Suns, identifiable by the X-rays pouring out from the heart of the galaxy (as this Hubble image comprises infrared observations, these X-rays are not visible here).
Know the quiet place within your heart and touch the rainbow of possibility; be
alive to the gentle breeze of communication, and please stop being such a jerk.
— Garrison Keillor

starsurfer
Stellar Cartographer
Posts: 5306
Joined: Thu Mar 15, 2012 7:25 pm

Re: Found Images: 2019 March

Post by starsurfer » Tue Mar 19, 2019 1:58 pm

NGC 2660
http://www.astro-austral.cl/imagenes/st ... 0/info.htm
Copyright: José Joaquin Pérez
ngc2660.jpg

starsurfer
Stellar Cartographer
Posts: 5306
Joined: Thu Mar 15, 2012 7:25 pm

Re: Found Images: 2019 March

Post by starsurfer » Thu Mar 21, 2019 6:09 pm


starsurfer
Stellar Cartographer
Posts: 5306
Joined: Thu Mar 15, 2012 7:25 pm

Re: Found Images: 2019 March

Post by starsurfer » Thu Mar 21, 2019 6:12 pm


starsurfer
Stellar Cartographer
Posts: 5306
Joined: Thu Mar 15, 2012 7:25 pm

Re: Found Images: 2019 March

Post by starsurfer » Thu Mar 21, 2019 6:15 pm

HFG 1
https://www.astrobin.com/221407/B/
Copyright: Eric Coles and Mel Helm
f0aedafd9b46ef2c9fd7807a2c0a59dd.1824x0.jpg

starsurfer
Stellar Cartographer
Posts: 5306
Joined: Thu Mar 15, 2012 7:25 pm

Re: Found Images: 2019 March

Post by starsurfer » Sat Mar 23, 2019 11:24 am


User avatar
bystander
Apathetic Retiree
Posts: 21571
Joined: Mon Aug 28, 2006 2:06 pm
Location: Oklahoma

ESO: Nature’s Fireworks

Post by bystander » Mon Mar 25, 2019 3:50 pm

Nature’s Fireworks
ESO Picture of the Week | 2019 Mar 25
This astonishing image clearly illustrates why astronomical observatories are usually built in remote, and often inhospitable, places. At ESO’s La Silla Observatory in Chile, the sky is so clear and untroubled by man-made sources of light that it appears as if a brightly-coloured celestial firework display is in progress!

This photograph, taken by ESO Photo Ambassador Petr Horálek, has been digitally projected to show as much of the sky as possible. This is why the roads leading to ESO’s 3.58-metre New Technology Telescope (left) and 3.6-metre telescope (right) appear distorted, and the bright river of light that is the Milky Way seems to curve across the sky, stretching from horizon to horizon.

Cosmic fireworks aside, this scene is filled with awe-inspiring phenomena. The pink “fireworks” themselves are actually large accumulations of glowing gas known as nebulae. To the right of the Milky Way lie the Magellanic Clouds, two nearby dwarf galaxies. Rising up from the horizon on the left of the image is a pale, white-ish column of light. This is the glow of Zodiacal light, caused by sunlight scattering off dust particles in the Solar System. At the centre of the image is another glowing region — green this time. This is airglow, a phenomenon that occurs high up in the Earth’s atmosphere, where a variety of processes create ghostly coloured light.
Know the quiet place within your heart and touch the rainbow of possibility; be
alive to the gentle breeze of communication, and please stop being such a jerk.
— Garrison Keillor

User avatar
bystander
Apathetic Retiree
Posts: 21571
Joined: Mon Aug 28, 2006 2:06 pm
Location: Oklahoma

HEIC: Wild Cosmic Ducks (Messier 11)

Post by bystander » Mon Mar 25, 2019 4:00 pm

Wild Cosmic Ducks
ESA Hubble Picture of the Week | 2019 Mar 25
This star-studded image shows us a portion of Messier 11, an open star cluster in the southern constellation of Scutum (The Shield). Messier 11 is also known as the Wild Duck Cluster, as its brightest stars form a “V” shape that somewhat resembles a flock of ducks in flight.

Messier 11 is one of the richest and most compact open clusters currently known. By investigating the brightest, hottest main sequence stars in the cluster astronomers estimate that it formed roughly 220 million years ago. Open clusters tend to contain fewer and younger stars than their more compact globular cousins, and Messier 11 is no exception: at its centre lie many blue stars, the hottest and youngest of the cluster’s few thousand stellar residents.

The lifespans of open clusters are also relatively short compared to those of globular ones; stars in open clusters are spread further apart and are thus not as strongly bound to each other by gravity, causing them to be more easily and quickly drawn away by stronger gravitational forces. As a result Messier 11 is likely to disperse in a few million years as its members are ejected one by one, pulled away by other celestial objects in the vicinity.
Know the quiet place within your heart and touch the rainbow of possibility; be
alive to the gentle breeze of communication, and please stop being such a jerk.
— Garrison Keillor

starsurfer
Stellar Cartographer
Posts: 5306
Joined: Thu Mar 15, 2012 7:25 pm

Re: Found Images: 2019 March

Post by starsurfer » Mon Mar 25, 2019 6:22 pm

Bubble Nebula (NGC 7635)
http://www.astroimager.net/Page-AP160-CCD-424.html
Copyright: Jim Janusz
NGC7635.jpg

starsurfer
Stellar Cartographer
Posts: 5306
Joined: Thu Mar 15, 2012 7:25 pm

Re: Found Images: 2019 March

Post by starsurfer » Mon Mar 25, 2019 6:25 pm

Abell 31
http://www.capella-observatory.com/Imag ... bell31.htm
Copyright: Stefan Binnewies
Abell31.jpg

starsurfer
Stellar Cartographer
Posts: 5306
Joined: Thu Mar 15, 2012 7:25 pm

Re: Found Images: 2019 March

Post by starsurfer » Tue Mar 26, 2019 1:55 pm


starsurfer
Stellar Cartographer
Posts: 5306
Joined: Thu Mar 15, 2012 7:25 pm

Re: Found Images: 2019 March

Post by starsurfer » Wed Mar 27, 2019 9:49 am

IC 5148
http://www.cielaustral.com/galerie/photo91.htm
Copyright: Ciel Austral
photo91f.jpg

starsurfer
Stellar Cartographer
Posts: 5306
Joined: Thu Mar 15, 2012 7:25 pm

Re: Found Images: 2019 March

Post by starsurfer » Wed Mar 27, 2019 9:50 am

Kronberger 33
https://pbase.com/jshuder/image/168759626
Copyright: Jim Shuder
168759626.TxyG11hN.jpg

starsurfer
Stellar Cartographer
Posts: 5306
Joined: Thu Mar 15, 2012 7:25 pm

Re: Found Images: 2019 March

Post by starsurfer » Wed Mar 27, 2019 9:52 am

NGC 1514
https://www.astrobin.com/337216/C/
Copyright: Jonas Illner
0mMylJd3ErEq_1824x0_wmhqkGbg.jpg

Californian
Asternaut
Posts: 2
Joined: Thu Mar 28, 2019 1:54 am

Re: Found Images: 2019 March

Post by Californian » Thu Mar 28, 2019 2:15 am

https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.php?feature=7359
NASA/JPL-Caltech
Image

This image by the Spitzer Space Telescope shows the stellar nursery W40 in the constellation Serpens Cauda
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Westerhout_40). W40 is the "butterfly" shaped nebula on the left side of the image, while the protocluster Serpens South can be seen near the top of the image, just right of center. W40 contains a cluster of several hundred young stars, and it is the radiation and stellar winds from the massive stars in this cluster that blew the bubbles that form the "wings" of the "butterfly." Serpens South is in a much earlier state of evolution, being still embedded in its natal molecular filament.

This star-forming complex is located at a distance of 436±9 parsecs (based on VLBI parallax estimation) making it one of the nearest sites of massive star formation in the Galaxy.

User avatar
bystander
Apathetic Retiree
Posts: 21571
Joined: Mon Aug 28, 2006 2:06 pm
Location: Oklahoma

Re: Found Images: 2019 March

Post by bystander » Thu Mar 28, 2019 6:20 am

Know the quiet place within your heart and touch the rainbow of possibility; be
alive to the gentle breeze of communication, and please stop being such a jerk.
— Garrison Keillor

starsurfer
Stellar Cartographer
Posts: 5306
Joined: Thu Mar 15, 2012 7:25 pm

Re: Found Images: 2019 March

Post by starsurfer » Sat Mar 30, 2019 6:39 pm


User avatar
Ann
4725 Å
Posts: 13372
Joined: Sat May 29, 2010 5:33 am

Re: Found Images: 2019 March

Post by Ann » Sun Mar 31, 2019 5:21 am

starsurfer wrote: Sat Mar 30, 2019 6:39 pm NGC 299
https://www.spacetelescope.org/images/potw1642a/
Copyright: ESA/Hubble & NASA
Interesting. This cluster is clearly evolved (because of the bright yellow stars in it), but it is nevertheless young (because the yellow stars are so bright compared with the other stars, which means that they are intrinsically very bright giants that started out as massive blue stars).

How old is NGC 299? That's a tricky one. Surely less than 50 million years, maybe less than 20 million years.

Ann
Color Commentator

starsurfer
Stellar Cartographer
Posts: 5306
Joined: Thu Mar 15, 2012 7:25 pm

Re: Found Images: 2019 March

Post by starsurfer » Sun Mar 31, 2019 2:01 pm

NGC 3338
http://www.chart32.de/index.php/component/k2/item/287
Copyright: CHART32
Processing: Bernd Flach-Wilken

Post Reply