Starship Asterisk*

Could it be this confluence of cycles that triggers Betelguese?

I like how the reflection makes it that much easier to actually pick out the stars that make up Orion per se.

Galactic cores are usually quite compact, but the yellowish, elongated bulge (really a bar) of M61 is not that small. Not sure what you're identifying as the elongated bulge - I'm looking at the tiny, circular as far as I can tell, bright central spot that the dust lanes come right up to and touch ...

To my eye, that core region looks abnormally small - is that an effect of the wavelength, or is the core just unusually compact? Galactic cores are usually quite compact, but the yellowish, elongated bulge (really a bar) of M61 is not that small. Not sure what you're identifying as the elongated bu...

It's pretty simple. For reasons unknown, presumably aesthetic, the image processor chose to rotate the entire Hubble frame from the original orientation. That resulted in dead space in all four corners where there was no image data. So rather than leaving those areas blank (which would have been th...

Nobody addressed the comment in one of the first posts here about repeated background elements. I see many of them, like a pair of faint edge-on galaxies near a bright orange point that appear in the top left, top right, and bottom just right of center. Are they lensed background galaxies (I’m sure...

To my eye, that core region looks abnormally small - is that an effect of the wavelength, or is the core just unusually compact?

Actually, the GIF wouldn't need to be that much larger, really. Remember that most of the image data is identical between frames. So the only areas that need to vary between frames would be the variables - which are a very small segment of the image. Using difference overlaying, and limiting the are...

One of the things I love about the really large pictures APOD posts is that you can often find interesting things in the background. For example - at about pixel 75,750, there's a sharp point of light surrounded by lots of fuzziness. It doesn't exactly look like the normal elliptical/spherical galax...

Now, the question I have is - due to centrifugal force on the *atmosphere*, and the variations in local gravitation affecting the density profile of the atmosphere - is this peak actually the best one to peek through, as in the least atmosphere in the way? (And of course, light pollution is always a...

Can I presume the semi-circular streaks more or less parallel to the horizon are star trails? Or is the atmosphere of Pluto *VASTLY* more complicated than we ever imagined?

My understanding was that all three arose from General Relativity, and were essentially the same underlying phenomena appearing in different manners. I'm just surprised quantum theory doesn't throw in its own red shift source. (Or does it? Do photons lose energy through interactions with the backgr...

I have not heard red-shift explained this way before. It does not sound at all like the explanations I have heard before, namely that we see red-shift because (at the time of emission), the light source was moving relative to the velocity we have (when receiving the light wave). Their are different...

Here's the thing - there's *ALMOST* nothing there, but ... not quite. Look at the "before" inset. There's a somewhat diffuse glow, strongest on the left, with something of a waist before it brightens back up just a bit (mostly reddish). There's also a somewhat more compact source in the u...

Here's the thing - there's *ALMOST* nothing there, but ... not quite. Look at the "before" inset. There's a somewhat diffuse glow, strongest on the left, with something of a waist before it brightens back up just a bit (mostly reddish). There's also a somewhat more compact source in the up...

Just be careful about looking at this with R/B anaglyph glasses. Freaky!

Unless this star is very unusual, it is going to contain heavy metals, up to and including iron - and probably even a bit beyond. Iron contained in the star material gets drawn off into the accretion disk, spirals in and gets ejected in the disk... Who honestly *DIDN'T* expect to see iron & nic...

Unless this star is very unusual, it is going to contain heavy metals, up to and including iron - and probably even a bit beyond. Iron contained in the star material gets drawn off into the accretion disk, spirals in and gets ejected in the disk... Who honestly *DIDN'T* expect to see iron & nick...

The Travolta Nebula (Stayin' Alive!!!)

*vaguely wonders why this discussion on alignment marks didn't take place in a separate thread over where the camera nuts hide* It's kind of sad, really, that we never launched Skylab B. Or a Skylab C. Three of them would give us as much pressurized volume as the ISS currently has. And since they'd ...

Eddies can appear in fluid dynamics but not, I think, when the dynamism of a system is driven by gravity. ... Except that aren't planets supposed to collapse from eddies in the dust clouds around the stars? Sure, there's some magnetic effects in play, but the primary force in the protoplanetary dis...

Eddies can appear in fluid dynamics but not, I think, when the dynamism of a system is driven by gravity. Any seeming eddy in an image of a galaxy will either be a background galaxy or a much smaller colliding galaxy, as in the image you linked to Ann. In that case I don't think eddy is quite the r...

One thing I find interested in a little knot in the arm of the galaxy, at about the 5:30 position. I can't quite tell if it's a small region of sub-rotation, or another galaxy in the background. Be kind of neat, though, to actually find a galaxy with a notable eddy spiral in one of its arms.

rstevenson wrote:It's possible to see a lot given just a few pixels. Or rather, it's possible to imagine a lot given just a few pixels.

Arty_Fact.jpg

Rob

So very very true.

BDanielMayfield wrote:I'm trying to find what ya'll are discussing, but were are the numbers (pixel coordinates?) you're using?

Bruce

They're pixels, yes - and my image editor (Gimp in this case) has a scale along the sides, and a "cursor position information window" that gives me the location.