How far? Butterfly Nebula from Upgraded Hubble(2009 Sept 10)

[wamendy367]

Assuming I'm in a nice shielded spacecraft and I took a picture of the Butterfly Nebula with my handy digital camera with no zoom. How far would I be from the Nebula to get the same picture that the Hubble did?

http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap090910.html

[geckzilla]

I haven't a clue how to answer your question, but since you started the topic, I wanted to contribute to today's APOD discussion. I was curious to see some kind of before repairs versus after so I went searching for some old pics of NGC 6302. Here is one I found, though I'm not sure how comparable they are. It's easy to say the new image has a much nicer quality to it, though. Here is a link to the old image, taken in 2004 (or at least released in '04). Check the "Release Images" tab for higher resolution.

http://www.hubblesite.org/newscenter/ar ... y/2004/46/

It's also fun to overlay the two images in photoshop to see how the nebula has changed slightly over the past few years. Lining up the few matching stars seems to be the best way.

[bystander]

Assuming I'm in a nice shielded spacecraft and I took a picture of the Butterfly Nebula with my handy digital camera with no zoom. How far would I be from the Nebula to get the same picture that the Hubble did?

http://www.hubblesite.org/newscenter/ar ... 5/image/f/
http://imgsrc.hubblesite.org/hu/db/imag ... ge_web.jpg

Considering the image is a composite of images taken thru six different narrow band filters and that the nebula is over 2 ly across, I don't think you could duplicate the picture with your camera. But in any case, you would probably need to be over 2 ly away, not conducive to snapshots.

geckzilla, your image shows up in APOD twice.

APOD: 2007 April 29 - NGC 6302: Big, Bright, Bug Nebula
APOD: 2004 May 5 - NGC 6302: Big, Bright, Bug Nebula

[geckzilla]

Two APODs out of Three says it's a Bug and not a Butterfly.

[grump]

A quick test with my PowerShot S2 IS indicated that it's field of view is about 45-50degrees, (a 30cm ruler filled the viewfinder at a distance of just over 30cm), so in order to take a happy snap of that 2ly wide object I would need to be about 2 and a bit ly away. The perspective would be different though, because the tele lens that is fitted to Hubble would tend to foreshorten the scene just a tad. I would want to make sure that any window I was shooting through was not double glazed.

[bystander]

Two APODs out of Three says it's a Bug and not a Butterfly.

NGC 6302 (also called the Bug Nebula or Butterfly Nebula), is a bipolar planetary nebula in the constellation Scorpius. It is one of the most interesting and complex planetary nebulae observed. The spectrum of NGC 6302 shows its central star is one of the hottest objects in the galaxy, with a surface temperature in excess of 200,000 K, implying that the star from which it formed must have been very large.

A butterfly nebula is a two-lobed nebular object that, when viewed in visible light or in false color images, takes on an apparent structure resembling the appearance of a butterfly.

Specific nebulas commonly referred to by the name Butterfly Nebula include:

• NGC 6302, AKA Bug Nebula
  Planetary Nebula M2-9, AKA M2-9, Wings of a Butterfly Nebula, Twin Jet Nebula

[Storm_norm]

Assuming I'm in a nice shielded spacecraft and I took a picture of the Butterfly Nebula with my handy digital camera with no zoom. How far would I be from the Nebula to get the same picture that the Hubble did?

http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap090910.html

"reflections are closer than they appear", sounds familiar.
hmm, consider this question.
if I were looking at a classroom wall that had a poster of a human red blood cell in which the cell appeared to be one meter in diameter, how much smaller would a camera (without zoom or magnification) have to be in order to get the same scale picture?

you know how the heavens were thought to be this globe that surrounded the earth, and the stars were dots on the globe? almost like the heavens were painted on a canvas? how it looks like the stars and planets kind of rested on this sphere that encircled us... that if we could fly high enough, we could pass this imaginary plane in which all points of light eminated and turn around and look back at it.
well, bear with me.
like looking through a microscope, hubble picks out points in the heavens in order to magnify, to blow up for our eyes to enjoy.
so let me ask this question another way. in comparison to a full moon and given our reference of viewing without aid from sea level, how big does this nebula appear to be in the sky? I know arc minutes or arc seconds are used with these kind of answers.

[pedro melo]

On this picture the are some structures that look like dust pillars in star forming regions, however this is a planetary nebula, so what causes this structures?

[kjardine]

My guess is that this object is embedded in a cloud of dust which becomes visible when hit by ionised gas from the nebula.

It's a bit frustrating that APOD calls this object the "Butterfly nebula" when it is more often called the "Bug nebula". There is already another planetary nebula that is often called the "Butterfly nebula", M2-9. The HII region IC 1318 is also often given this name, see:

http://www.jklackl.at/astro/gallery/deepsky/ic1318.htm

Astronomy already has a serious problem with confusing nomenclature and it is unfortunate that APOD is contributing to it.

It's amusing to see that APOD has itself been caught up by the naming confusion. In 1998, they published an image of NGC 6302, also calling it the Butterfly nebula, but linked the name to an image of M2-9!

See:

http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/rjn/apod/ap980602.html

To add to the confusion, NASA has also referred to NGC 2346 as the Butterfly nebula, see:

http://www.nasa.gov/multimedia/imagegal ... e_285.html

Kevin Jardine
Galaxy Map
http://galaxymap.org

[kjardine]

Just for reference, SIMBAD lists 28 names for this object, including the "Bug nebula".
The "Butterfly nebula" is not one of these.

See:
http://simbad.u-strasbg.fr/simbad/sim-id?Ident=NGC+6302

APOD, isn't 28 names enough?



Kevin Jardine
Galaxy Map
http://galaxymap.org

[emc]

What a sharp image! http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap090910.html

The image does look a lot like a butterfly but it is also not difficult to envision a bug smattered on my windshield. An image I see all too often. At times, I just hate the intrusion my vehicle makes into the natural world around me. Of course it is under my control so technically it's me smattering the innocent (comparatively) little bugs. I hope we are not accountable for the bug lives we take with our vehicles. Say, maybe if you drive one of those beetle bugs you’re considered exempt since it’s kind of on level ground with the small creatures making collisions more or less mutual.

[kjardine]

Two APODs out of Three says it's a Bug and not a Butterfly.

As I pointed out in the *other* discussion thread on this image:

http://asterisk.apod.com/vie ... =9&t=17340

SIMBAD lists 28 identifiers for this object:

http://simbad.u-strasbg.fr/simbad/sim-id?Ident=NGC+6302

including "Bug nebula". None of them are "Butterfly nebula". I wonder if this is a name that APOD made up?

Kevin Jardine
Galaxy Map
http://galaxymap.org

[neufer]

Just for reference, SIMBAD lists 28 names for this object, including the "Bug nebula".
The "Butterfly nebula" is not one of these.

See: http://simbad.u-strasbg.fr/simbad/sim-id?Ident=NGC+6302

APOD, isn't 28 names enough?

• Not nearly enough!

-------------------------------------------
. Coriolanus > Act I, scene III
.
VALERIA: I saw him run after a gilded butterfly:
. and when he caught it, he let it go again;
. and after it again; and over and over he comes,
. and again; catched it again; or whether his fall
. enraged him, or how 'twas, he did so set his
. teeth and tear it;
-------------------------------------------
http://muse.jhu.edu/cgi-bin/access.cgi? ... ative_lite...
The King-Bot, the Crown Jewels and the Man in the Brown Macintosh
James Ramey Butterfly Worship

<<In The Annotated Lolita, Alfred Appel, Jr., associates
the frequent appearance of butterflies in Nabokov's work
with the mysterious processes that give rise to art,
suggesting a parallel between "the evolution of the
artist's self through artistic creation?and the cycle of insect
metamorphosis." Nabokov's apparent affirmation of this parallel,
implied by having allowed its publication with his book, seems to
have given some critics the impression that Nabokov saw his artistic
exertions to be like those of a caterpillar that hatches, ingests a
certain amount of plant material, cocoons himself, and pupates into a
splendid Red Admirable for good lepidoptereaders to admirably admire.
Yet this picture, however pretty, offers nothing but cheap symbolism
of the most exhausted sort, precisely the kind of symbolism Nabokov
relentlessly pilloried in his lectures, interviews & published works.

Appel's preface also seems to have fomented other variants of
butterfly worship among Nabokov's critics, in particular one that
interprets butterflies as symbols of the spirits of dead characters.
Brian Boyd proposed in 1999 that the ghost of Hazel Shade is an active
agent in Pale Fire, a prime mover of the novel's action. Though
Boyd's book is an indispensable compendium of critical insights
into Pale Fire, he bases his main "solution" to the novel largely
on Hazel's reincarnation as a Vanessa atalanta butterfly.>>
----------------------------------------------------

[orin stepanek]

What a sharp image! http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap090910.html

The image does look a lot like a butterfly but it is also not difficult to envision a bug smattered on my windshield. An image I see all too often. At times, I just hate the intrusion my vehicle makes into the natural world around me. Of course it is under my control so technically it's me smattering the innocent (comparatively) little bugs. I hope we are not accountable for the bug lives we take with our vehicles. Say, maybe if you drive one of those beetle bugs you’re considered exempt since it’s kind of on level ground with the small creatures making collisions more or less mutual.

I too, think it is very butterfly like. 8) Neat picture; I only hope it fits as a background for my computer screen.

Orin

[BMAONE23]

Just for the WOW effect
http://www.hubblesite.org/newscenter/ar ... ge/a/warn/
Here is the monsterous version (warning...45megs)

[Chris Peterson]

Assuming I'm in a nice shielded spacecraft and I took a picture of the Butterfly Nebula with my handy digital camera with no zoom. How far would I be from the Nebula to get the same picture that the Hubble did?

Well, you could be a couple of light years away and have this object fill your field-of-view in a similar way. But your camera could never catch a similar image. By getting closer, the object will get larger, but no brighter. So even nearby, you'd just see a bit of faint, gray fuzziness (something like how the Milky Way looks). No color, little structure. To get a similar image, you'd need to take pictures through the correct filters, and each picture would have to be exposed for hours- something your digital camera is not capable of.

[bystander]

SIMBAD lists 28 identifiers for this object:

http://simbad.u-strasbg.fr/simbad/sim-id?Ident=NGC+6302

including "Bug nebula". None of them are "Butterfly nebula". I wonder if this is a name that APOD made up?

A butterfly nebula is a two-lobed nebular object that, when viewed in visible light or in false color images, takes on an apparent structure resembling the appearance of a butterfly.

Specific nebulas commonly referred to by the name Butterfly Nebula include:

• NGC 6302, AKA Bug Nebula
  Planetary Nebula M2-9, AKA M2-9, Wings of a Butterfly Nebula, Twin Jet Nebula

[kjardine]

Hi bystander,

I did read your post.

When I said "I wonder if this is a name that APOD made up?", I meant originally, as there are APOD references to it going back to at least 1998.

Wikipedia is largely a reflection of information that can be found on other websites (eg. APOD) and I would trust SIMBAD much more as a source of hard information.

Kevin

Kevin Jardine
Galaxy Map
http://galaxymap.org

[fkrimmelbein]

A general question about the disturbances in the nebula. Some of them appear to be shaped like rough drops of water. Does this mean the nebula is passing through planets or stars that are in it's path? Specifically I am looking in the lower left portion of the picture where a "bubble" appears to have a trail leading away from the center of the explosion. What would cause such bubbles?

[bystander]

When I said "I wonder if this is a name that APOD made up?", I meant originally, as there are APOD references to it going back to at least 1998.

Wikipedia is largely a reflection of information that can be found on other websites (eg. APOD) and I would trust SIMBAD much more as a source of hard information.

I agree, SIMBAD is a much better source of hard information, but wiki is a better source of trivia. Most of the 28 identifiers in SIMBAD are catalog or survey identifiers, not names.

BTW, I notice the wiki butterfly nebula disambiguation page has changed since my last post. It no longer has the definition of a butterfly nebula as a two-lobed (bipolar) nebular object that, when viewed in visible light or in false color images, takes on an apparent structure resembling the appearance of a butterfly.

IMHO, NGC 6302 looks much more like a butterfly than M2-9, which is also more aptly named as the Twin Jet Nebula.

I think you need to blame ESO, not APOD, for this misnomer. Although the ESO link in the APOD: 1998 June 2 - NGC 6302: The Butterfly Nebula explanation is broken, I did find what appears to be the same VLT picture, ESO - NGC 6302, the Butterfly Nebula.

[Chris Peterson]

I agree, SIMBAD is a much better source of hard information, but I think you need to blame ESO, not APOD, for this misnomer.

For common names, SIMBAD is no better than Wikipedia or a thousand obscure blogs. That's because none of these names have any official recognition. The common names used for some objects are simply adopted by very casual convention. And as a result, some names are used many times. Ultimately, if you want to make completely clear the object you are discussing, you need to use a recognized catalog number. Many objects have multiple catalog listings, but any one of these (now taking advantage of SIMBAD or another catalog amalgamator) is sufficient to avoid ambiguity.

[kjardine]

'When I use a word,' Humpty Dumpty said in rather a scornful tone, `it means just what I choose it to mean -- neither more nor less.'

Lewis Carroll, Through the Looking Glass, and What Alice Found There

Not sure I agree. Stars and nebulae both have common names (eg. Sirius or the Lagoon nebula) that are much more useful for general communication in most cases than the catalog references. The common names become less useful if they are used inconsistently, however.

Kevin

Kevin Jardine
Galaxy Map
http://galaxymap.org

[emc]

What a sharp image! http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap090910.html

The image does look a lot like a butterfly but it is also not difficult to envision a bug smattered on my windshield. An image I see all too often. At times, I just hate the intrusion my vehicle makes into the natural world around me. Of course it is under my control so technically it's me smattering the innocent (comparatively) little bugs. I hope we are not accountable for the bug lives we take with our vehicles. Say, maybe if you drive one of those beetle bugs you’re considered exempt since it’s kind of on level ground with the small creatures making collisions more or less mutual.

I too, think it is very butterfly like. 8) Neat picture; I only hope it fits as a background for my computer screen.

Orin

Hi Orin,

Yeah, butterfly! The only correlation I could make with bugs is the splatter on my windshield.

I would also venture to say that what’s the smatter with some of these posts is too much emphasis on words.

[geckzilla]

I don't think it's hurting anything by using or having an ambiguous name on the nebula, either. I was joking in my previous post. As boring as NGC numbers are, the inclusion of the NGC id eliminates any ambiguity given by the common name. It is amusing because when referencing insects, using the word "bug" itself can bring about confusion since a bug could be a true bug or it could just be a general term for any random insect.

[wamendy367]

Darn, thanks for all the responses and discussion about my question of how far.

I'm going to cancel my tickets with the Extra-Galactic tours, was probably a scam.