Starship Asterisk*

geckzilla wrote:The Etched Hourglass / MyCn18 is pretty famous too. A lot of people who recognize it will say Pearl Jam, though. Apparently the Helix and Eagle are inside the case, too.

Nitpicker wrote:
The Trapezium is very nicely presented, too, which is something I always look for, without really knowing why.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orion_Nebula#History wrote:

Click to play embedded YouTube video.

<<The Orion Nebula (also known as M42, or NGC 1976) is one of the brightest nebulae, and is visible to the naked eye in the night sky.

Neither Ptolemy's Almagest nor Al Sufi's Book of Fixed Stars noted this nebula, even though they both listed patches of nebulosity elsewhere in the night sky; nor did Galileo mention it, even though he also made telescopic observations surrounding it in 1610 and 1617.

The first published observation of the nebula was by the Jesuit mathematician and astronomer Johann Baptist Cysat of Lucerne in his 1619 monograph on the comets (describing observations of the nebula that may date back to 1611). He made comparisons between it and a bright comet seen in 1618 and described how the nebula appeared through his telescope as: "one sees how in like manner some stars are compressed into a very narrow space and how round about and between the stars a white light like that of a white cloud is poured out"

His description of the center stars as different from a comet's head in that they were a "rectangle" may have been an early description of the Trapezium Cluster[ (The first detection of three of the four stars of this cluster is credited to Galileo Galilei in a February 4, 1617 although he did not notice the surrounding nebula — possibly due to the narrow field of vision of his early telescope.)>>

saturno2 wrote:Ann
Very interesting your note of Google and Nebulas.

henrystar wrote:

heehaw wrote:Hey, we need a google planet derby, too!

OK, they are off .... we have a winnah! Earth! There's no place like home!
#1 Earth 92,000,000
#2 Mars 35,700,000
#3 Mercury 28,900,000
#4 Jupiter 23.400,000
#5 Saturn 15,700,000 ~ a tie
#5 Venus 15,300,000 ~ a tie
#6 Neptune 14,500,000
#7 Pluto 13,100,000
#8 Uranus 9,500,000

Chris Peterson wrote:

geckzilla wrote:The Eagle is extraordinarily famous and was made so by HST. You can see it in the background in old Star Trek: TNG episodes and in other popular media. I would guess that it along with the Horsehead would be two of the most memorable nebulas for the general population. Orion is popular in astronomy circles but for whatever reason it makes less of an impact elsewhere. It's probably got to do with its amorphous shape. When people can see animals and other things in nebulas then it makes them much more memorable.

Yes, the Eagle, too. The Trifid showed up in Star Trek, and in about a thousand bad science fiction movies from the 1950s and after.

heehaw wrote:Hey, we need a google planet derby, too!

geckzilla wrote:
The Eagle is extraordinarily famous and was made so by HST. You can see it in the background in old Star Trek: TNG episodes and in other popular media. I would guess that it along with the Horsehead would be two of the most memorable nebulas for the general population. Orion is popular in astronomy circles but for whatever reason it makes less of an impact elsewhere. It's probably got to do with its amorphous shape. When people can see animals and other things in nebulas then it makes them much more memorable.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crab_Nebula#First_identification wrote:
<<The 3rd Earl of Rosse observed the nebula at Birr Castle in 1844 using a 36-inch telescope, and referred to the object as the "Crab Nebula" because a drawing he made of it looked like a crab.

He observed it again later, in 1848, using a 72-inch telescope and could not confirm the supposed resemblance, but the name stuck nevertheless.>>

geckzilla wrote:The Eagle is extraordinarily famous and was made so by HST. You can see it in the background in old Star Trek: TNG episodes and in other popular media. I would guess that it along with the Horsehead would be two of the most memorable nebulas for the general population. Orion is popular in astronomy circles but for whatever reason it makes less of an impact elsewhere. It's probably got to do with its amorphous shape. When people can see animals and other things in nebulas then it makes them much more memorable.

Chris Peterson wrote:

Ann wrote:What other nebula in the sky could be as famous as the Orion Nebula?

I'd say that both the Horsehead and the Trifid are more well known, and show up in more places outside astronomy circles. Probably because they are more interesting in appearance. I've found that most people at star parties (non astronomers) have never heard of the Orion Nebula. Of course, the situation among astronomers (amateur and otherwise) is quite different.

Ann wrote:What other nebula in the sky could be as famous as the Orion Nebula?

APOD Robot wrote:
The Great Nebula in Orion, also known as M42, is one of the most famous nebulas in the sky.