APOD: Galaxies Beyond the Heart: Maffei 1... (2010 Mar 09)

[APOD Robot]

Galaxies Beyond the Heart: Maffei 1 and 2

Explanation: The two galaxies on the far left were unknown until 1968. Although they would have appeared as two of the brighter galaxies on the night sky, the opaque dust of the central band of our Milky Way Galaxy had obscured them from being seen in visible light. The above image in infrared light taken by the recently launched Wide-Field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE), however, finds these galaxies in great detail far behind -- but seemingly next to -- the photogenic Heart nebula (IC 1805). The spiral galaxy near the top is the easiest to spot and is known as Maffei 2. Just below and to its right is fuzzy-looking Maffei 1, the closest giant elliptical galaxy to Earth. The above false-colored image spans three full moons from top to bottom. The Maffei galaxies each span about 15,000 light years across and lie about 10 million light years away toward the constellation of the Queen of Ethiopia (Cassiopeia). On the image right, stars, gaseous filaments, and warm dust highlight a detailed infrared view of the Heart nebula.

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[Indigo_Sunrise]

Great image!

I hadn't read too much about WISE, but one of the links included in the description - this one - was pretty informative, and the links off that page even more so.

Nice job guys!


P.S. Is the 'digg' feature now defunct? I only ask because it seems to be omitted from several previous APOD's. Just curious......

[biddie67]

Magnificent photo! It's hard for me to find the words to describe the awe created by pictures like this. My mind does a ying-yang trying to translate a "3 moon wide" picture into the actual distances it represents .....

[RJN]

Indigo_Sunrise: There is some discussion of Digg on APOD elsewhere on the Asterisk including here:
http://asterisk.apod.com/vie ... 3&start=50
Your thoughts on this topic there would be most welcome! - RJN

[TheLeRoque]

It would be very informative to post side-by-side images of this scene - one taken at visible wavelengths and the other at IR wavelengths - to visually demonstrate the ability of IR images to penetrate cosmic dust.
APOD images remain as my daily inspiration. Keep up the great work.
TheLeRoque

[DavidLeodis]

In the explanation it states "Maffei 1, the closest giant elliptical galaxy to Earth". That seems (at least to me!) quite amazing considering it looks fairly insignificant in relation to some other objects in the image, such as Maffei 2.

[Chris Peterson]

In the explanation it states "Maffei 1, the closest giant elliptical galaxy to Earth". That seems (at least to me!) quite amazing considering it looks fairly insignificant in relation to some other objects in the image, such as Maffei 2. :?

It's the closest giant elliptical galaxy. None of the other objects in the image are in that category, including Maffei 2, which is a spiral galaxy.

[WildGuruLarry]

It would be very informative to post side-by-side images of this scene - one taken at visible wavelengths and the other at IR wavelengths - to visually demonstrate the ability of IR images to penetrate cosmic dust.

You can look at this APOD:

http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap061003.html

I loaded the two pictures up in two tabs and flipped between them. The two galaxies are just barely visible on the left side of the visible wavelength image. Very cool.

-Mike

[eta oin shrdlu]

It would be very informative to post side-by-side images of this scene - one taken at visible wavelengths and the other at IR wavelengths - to visually demonstrate the ability of IR images to penetrate cosmic dust.

You can look at this APOD:

http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap061003.html

I loaded the two pictures up in two tabs and flipped between them. The two galaxies are just barely visible on the left side of the visible wavelength image. Very cool.

-Mike

I rotated and rescaled the above visible-wavelength image to match the WISE IR image; see it here. Below is a small HTML file which fades the visible image in and out as you move your mouse left and right across it.

Code: Select all

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8" ?>
<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.1//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml11/DTD/xhtml11.dtd">
<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" xml:lang="en"><head>
<title>Heart Nebula, visible and IR</title>
<script type="text/javascript">
function s(ev,x) {
  var i = document.getElementById("vis")
  var t = x / i.width
  t = 1 - t*t
  i.style.opacity = t
  i.style.filter = "alpha(opacity=" + 100*t + ")"
}
</script>
</head>
<body style="padding:0;margin:0;">
  <h2 style="text-align:center">Heart Nebula (IC 1805), in IR (base) and visible (overlay)</h2>
  <div style="margin:5px">Image credits:
    <a href="http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap061003.html">Visible image</a>:
    Matt Russell (rotated and rescaled);
    <a href="http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap100309.html">IR image</a>:
       WISE team.
  </div>
  <img src="http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/image/1003/heartmaffei_wise_big.jpg" id="IR"
       style="position:absolute; width:100%; z-index:1;" />
  <img src="http://img198.imageshack.us/img198/3379/heartvisible.png"             id="vis"
       onmousemove="s(event,event.clientX)" onmouseout="s(event,0)"
       style="position:absolute; width:100%; z-index:2;" />

</body></html>

(Works best in non-IE browsers; IE doesn't handle PNG transparency the same way other browsers do.)

[Case]

I rotated and rescaled the above visible-wavelength image to match the WISE IR image. Below is a small HTML file which fades the visible image in and out as you move your mouse left and right across it.

Now that is a cool way to present such data. Not only do these galaxies pop out in IR, but so do a few stars (I think they're stars). I guess those stars emit more than average in the IR part of the spectrum. (E.g. right between Maffei 1 and 2, a bright extra star stands out in IR.)
The nebula looks like it is expanding in IR when moving the cursor, as it looks wider/bigger in that part of the spectrum. Nice optical illusion of this presentation.