Starship Asterisk*

Chris Peterson wrote:

Anthony Barreiro wrote:Here's another interesting complication: while on Lorenzo's beautiful long-exposure photograph M110 appears bigger and brighter than M32, when you look at Andromeda and her satellite galaxies through a telescope, M32 is much more obvious than M110. Objects that have larger apparent sizes tend to have lower surface brightnesses, and thus appear dimmer.

Indeed. It is the ability to adjust contrast in images that makes the technique so much more valuable than visual astronomy. And it is the often radical difference between what objects look like in images and what they look like through eyepieces that results in the common question in this forum: "How the heck did they ever come up with that name?"

neufer wrote:I prefer to say that they orbit around a common barycenter roughly half way between them.

Man made global warming is caused by the Earth retaining slightly more solar energy than it radiates, due primarily to the annual dumping of 23 billion tons of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. (But right after that I would blame Andromeda.)

tkc wrote:Just out of curiosity, what are the two background galaxies (circled)?

Chris Peterson wrote:

freidaV wrote:
First, aren't the Milky Way and Andromeda already gravitationally interacting? Two million light years is not so far away, universally speaking...

Certainly. The two galaxies are in orbit around each other.

Chris Peterson wrote:

freidaV wrote:
Second, if the galactic arm where we're located is adjacent to Andromeda, could that interaction be a culprit in global warming?

Global warming is caused by the Earth retaining slightly more solar energy than it radiates, due to chemical changes in its atmosphere.

Anthony Barreiro wrote:

Chris Peterson wrote:... It is the ability to adjust contrast in images that makes the technique so much more valuable than visual astronomy.

They may not be cutting edge research instruments any more, but I'm still going to keep using my little telescopes and eyepieces.

The Trifid nebula, for instance, doesn't look anything like it's namesake:

Chris Peterson wrote:... It is the ability to adjust contrast in images that makes the technique so much more valuable than visual astronomy.

And it is the often radical difference between what objects look like in images and what they look like through eyepieces that results in the common question in this forum: "How the heck did they ever come up with that name?"

Anthony Barreiro wrote:Here's another interesting complication: while on Lorenzo's beautiful long-exposure photograph M110 appears bigger and brighter than M32, when you look at Andromeda and her satellite galaxies through a telescope, M32 is much more obvious than M110. Objects that have larger apparent sizes tend to have lower surface brightnesses, and thus appear dimmer.

neufer wrote:

geckzilla wrote:
The depth of the Universe is lost when we view it because it essentially becomes a two dimensional plane to us.

It's rather difficult to judge both size and distance without some interesting measurement techniques.

bystander wrote:

Chris Peterson wrote:

bystander wrote:<<< Just out of curiosity, what are the two background galaxies?>>>
The larger one is M32, the smaller M110.

I think it's the other way around.

You are correct, I did get them backwards. M32 has the smaller apparent size and M110 the larger.

freidaV wrote:First, aren't the Milky Way and Andromeda already gravitationally interacting? Two million light years is not so far away, universally speaking...

Second, if the galactic arm where we're located is adjacent to Andromeda, could that interaction be a culprit in global warming?

freidaV wrote:Hello.

I'm new to the science of astronomy, so my questions may seem naïve. Please be tolerant in your answers?

First, aren't the Milky Way and Andromeda already gravitationally interacting? Two million light years is not so far away, universally speaking....

Second, if the galactic arm where we're located is adjacent to Andromeda, could that interaction be a culprit in global warming?

Thank you!

owlice wrote:
Someone made a good case for a kiwi in email.
(To be clear, that'd be the kiwi bird.)

• KiwiLeaks

neufer wrote:

Chris Peterson wrote:

neufer wrote:
Semantics? M32 is twice as bright as M110 and contains a supermassive black hole estimated at 1.5 to 5 million solar masses.

Not quite the word I'd choose, but certainly, discussions about size can be ambiguous. However, since the question was with respect to the image itself, asking for the identity of a couple of fuzzies, I'd interpret size in this case to refer to apparent size.

There was a spirited debate recently on whether NGC 2936 resembled a porpoise/penguin or a hummingbird.

It sort of depended upon the rather arbitrary fuzzy brightness level that one wished to concentrate upon.

APOD Robot wrote: The Porpoise Galaxy from Hubble

Chris Peterson wrote:

bystander wrote:

tkc wrote:Just out of curiosity, what are the two background galaxies?

The larger one is M32, the smaller M110.

I think it's the other way around.

Chris Peterson wrote:

neufer wrote:
Semantics? M32 is twice as bright as M110 and contains a supermassive black hole estimated at 1.5 to 5 million solar masses.

Not quite the word I'd choose, but certainly, discussions about size can be ambiguous. However, since the question was with respect to the image itself, asking for the identity of a couple of fuzzies, I'd interpret size in this case to refer to apparent size.

APOD Robot wrote: The Porpoise Galaxy from Hubble

neufer wrote:Semantics?
M32 is twice as bright as M110 and contains a supermassive black hole estimated at 1.5 to 5 million solar masses.

geckzilla wrote:
The depth of the Universe is lost when we view it because it essentially becomes a two dimensional plane to us.

It's rather difficult to judge both size and distance without some interesting measurement techniques.

Chris Peterson wrote:

bystander wrote:

tkc wrote:
Just out of curiosity, what are the two background galaxies?

The larger one is M32, the smaller M110.

I think it's the other way around.

Lorenzo Comolli wrote:Thanks for comments and for selection! :-)

@Boomer12k: the up-down flipped image is the small one, while the linked one is ok. I suppose the editors preferred to put in "foreground" the dust bands just for aestetical purposes.

Lorenzo

bystander wrote:

tkc wrote:Just out of curiosity, what are the two background galaxies?

The larger one is M32, the smaller M110.

tkc wrote:Just out of curiosity, what are the two background galaxies?