by Ann » Sat Jul 01, 2023 5:46 pm
johnnydeep wrote: ↑Sat Jul 01, 2023 2:49 pm
Ann, I don't understand your reference to NGC 6744, other than that it too is a nice example of a nearly face-on spiral). Is it near this trio in the sky, as I might guess by you're referring to a fanciful Peacock Dragon? (Sorry, but my constellational "geography" is nonexistent.)
I think they look quite similar, except that NGC 6744 lacks sharply defined arms. But both are big, both have smallish bars, both have similar color indices, both have arms that wind in the same direction, and both are seen at the same angle from the Earth.
I just thought that the names "Pavo" (the constellation of NGC 6744) and "Draco" (the constellation of the three galaxies in today's APOD) sound quite similar! You could almost mix them up! So I thought, what if you actually mixed them up, so that you got a Pavo-Draco, a Peacock-Dragon? And when I googled Peacock-Dragon, I actually found several nice pictures of such creatures! I picked the most striking-looking one and posted it.
And I thought, what if we had a constellation "Pavo-Draco"? Then NGC 6744 and the Draco galaxies would be in the same constellation, but the Pavo-Draco constellation would somehow cover most of the sky!
It seemed just ridiculously funny to me. That's my kind of humor, you know.
Ann
[quote=johnnydeep post_id=331992 time=1688222987 user_id=132061]
Ann, I don't understand your reference to NGC 6744, other than that it too is a nice example of a nearly face-on spiral). Is it near this trio in the sky, as I might guess by you're referring to a fanciful Peacock Dragon? (Sorry, but my constellational "geography" is nonexistent.)
[/quote]
I think they look quite similar, except that NGC 6744 lacks sharply defined arms. But both are big, both have smallish bars, both have similar color indices, both have arms that wind in the same direction, and both are seen at the same angle from the Earth.
I just thought that the names "Pavo" (the constellation of NGC 6744) and "Draco" (the constellation of the three galaxies in today's APOD) sound quite similar! You could almost mix them up! So I thought, what if you actually mixed them up, so that you got a Pavo-Draco, a Peacock-Dragon? And when I googled Peacock-Dragon, I actually found several nice pictures of such creatures! I picked the most striking-looking one and posted it.
And I thought, what if we had a constellation "Pavo-Draco"? Then NGC 6744 and the Draco galaxies would be in the same constellation, but the Pavo-Draco constellation would somehow cover most of the sky!
It seemed just ridiculously funny to me. That's my kind of humor, you know.
Ann