APOD: North America and the Pelican (2010 Dec 18)

[APOD Robot]

North America and the Pelican

Explanation: Here lie familiar shapes in unfamiliar locations. On the left is an emission nebula cataloged as NGC 7000, famous partly because it resembles our fair planet's continent of North America. The emission region to the right of the North America Nebula is IC 5070, also known for its suggestive outlines as the Pelican Nebula. Separated by a dark cloud of obscuring dust, the two bright nebulae are about 1,500 light-years away. At that distance, the 4 degree wide field of view spans 100 light-years. This spectacular cosmic portrait combines narrow band images of the region in a false-color palette to highlight bright ionization fronts with fine details of dark, dusty forms in silhouette. Emission from atomic hydrogen, sulfur, and oxygen is captured in the narrow band data. These nebulae can be seen with binoculars from a dark location. Look northeast of bright star Deneb in the constellation Cygnus the Swan.

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[wamendy]

In other words these "two" nebula are actually one nebula but the obscuring cloud of dust makes it look like two ???

[lenka]

In other words these "two" nebula are actually one nebula but the obscuring cloud of dust makes it look like two ???

I found this map. It shows the entire emission nebula, which stretches for 4 degrees of the sky. Nebulae North America and Pelican are two parts of the same star forming region. Here are four clear areas nebulous that come from directories NGC / IC. North America Nebula (NGC 7000) is the brightest part. The other three nebulae are on the list, is all the darker parts of Pelican Nebula (IC 5067/68/70).

You can also read about it here:
http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap061130.html
http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap060816.html

[neufer]

In other words these "two" nebula are actually one nebula but the obscuring cloud of dust makes it look like two ???

I found this map. It shows the entire emission nebula, which stretches for 4 degrees of the sky.

It is simply a reflection of Las Vegas cut in two by the Vegas Strip:

The Las Vegas metropolitan area is located near the southern tip of Nevada, within the Mohave Desert.

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<<While the city is famous for its casinos and resort hotels—Las Vegas bills itself as “the entertainment capital of the world”—the wider metropolitan area includes several other incorporated cities and unincorporated areas (not part of a state-recognized municipality).

Astronauts on the International Space Station (ISS) observe and photograph numerous metropolitan areas when they are illuminated by sunlight, but the extent and pattern of these areas is perhaps best revealed at night by city lights. The surrounding darkness of the desert presents a stark contrast to the brightly lit street grid of the developed area. The Vegas Strip is reputed to be the brightest spot on Earth due to the concentration of lights on its hotels and casinos. The tarmac of McCarran International Airport is dark by comparison, while the airstrips of Nellis Air Force Base on the northeastern fringe are likewise dark. The dark mass of Frenchman Mountain borders the city to the east.

The acquisition of focused nighttime images requires astronauts to track the target with the handheld camera while the ISS is moving at a speed of more than 7 kilometers per second (over 15,000 miles per hour) relative to the Earth’s surface. This was achieved during ISS Expedition 6 using a homemade tracking device, but subsequent crews have needed to develop manual tracking skills.>>

[orin stepanek]

Link that shows zoom into the Pelican Nebula is neat.

Click to play embedded YouTube video.

[lenka]

I couldnt see a pelican only North America. I wondered why it is called pelican nebula? I took these names serious and now I see:) Pelican image fits.

[Star*Hopper]

I couldnt see a pelican only North America.

Glad you brought that up, Lenka. I've always thought the Pelican looked more like a pterodactyl with that 'monohorned' skull feature. Or, as today's version has been monikered, a 'pterosaur'. (Those IAU freaks will apparently stop at nothing! - right, Ptluto?)

Two I've never 'gotten' are the Eagle Nebula & the Wild Duck Cluster. In the former, I can make out 2 or 3 visages I think might resemble one....but have never been able to satisfactorily nail it down. And in the latter, I see nothing....just a bunched-up bunch of stars....pretty, indeed, but nothing to suggest a form. I've also noted quite a few different interpretations of whatever form it supposedly follows, so know I'm not alone!

Hey, maybe we can get da 'Neuf' to do his magic, & show us The Way?
How 'bout it, Maestro?

[neufer]

I couldnt see a pelican only North America. I wondered why it is called pelican nebula? I took these names serious and now I see:) Pelican image fits.

[size=150][color=#0000FF]I see at least 2 different sized pelicans along with one distinctly full pelican throat pouch[/color][/size]

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hop

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<<A pelican, derived from the Greek word pelekys (meaning “axe” and applied to birds that cut wood with their bills or beaks), is a large water bird with a large throat pouch, belonging to the bird family Pelecanidae. The largest pelican is believed to be the Dalmatian Pelican (P. crispus), at up to 15 kg, 183 cm long, with a maximum wingspan of 3 metres. The Australian Pelican has the longest bill of any bird.

Along with the darters, cormorants, gannets, boobies, frigatebirds, and tropicbirds, pelicans make up the order Pelecaniformes. Modern pelicans, of which there are eight species, are found on all continents except Antarctica. Birds of inland and coastal waters, they are absent from polar regions, the deep ocean, oceanic islands, and inland South America.

From the fossil record it is known that pelicans have been around for over 30 million years, the earliest fossil Pelecanus being found in Oligocene deposits in France. A prehistoric genus has been named Miopelecanus, while Protopelicanus may be a pelicanid or pelecaniform – or a similar aquatic bird such as a pseudotooth bird (Pelagornithidae). The supposed Miocene pelican Liptornis from Argentina is a nomen dubium, being based on hitherto indeterminable fragments.

The diet of a Pelican usually consists of fish, but they also eat amphibians, crustaceans and on some occasions, smaller birds. They often catch fish by expanding the throat pouch. Then they must drain the pouch above the surface before they can swallow. This operation takes up to a minute, during which time other seabirds are particularly likely to steal the fish. Pelicans in their turn sometimes pirate prey from other seabirds. The white pelicans often fish in groups. They will form a line to chase schools of small fish into shallow water, and then scoop them up. Large fish are caught with the bill-tip, then tossed up in the air to be caught and slid into the gullet head first. The Brown Pelican of North America usually plunge-dives for its prey.

In medieval Europe, the pelican was thought to be particularly attentive to her young, to the point of providing her own blood when no other food was available. Likewise a folktale from India says that a pelican killed her young by rough treatment but was then so contrite that she resurrected them with her own blood. These legends may have arisen because pelicans look as if they are stabbing themselves as they often press their bill into their chest to fully empty their pouch. The pelican is used on the Louisiana state flag and Louisiana state seal, as the Brown pelican is the Louisiana state bird.>>

[lenka]

yes Neufer, "your" pelican is more pelicanish..if I can say like this?

[biddie67]

Good Morning all -- my first reaction to today's APOD was exactly the same as the other posts - those two nebula look like pieces of the same big one to me. The nebula map was very helpful in explaining the illusion of separate nebula.

Neufer - the photo of the pelican on the post brought back memories of a very familiar sight - I used to see scenes like this often when I lived on the Bolivar Peninsular, east of Galveston.

[neufer]

yes Neufer, "your" pelican is more pelicanish..if I can say like this?

Try saying it three times fast, lenka.

<<A knish (pronounced with a "k") is an Eastern European, and Yiddish snack food made popular in America by Jewish immigrants, eaten widely by Jewish and non-Jewish peoples alike. Immigrants who arrived from Russia sometime around 1900 brought knishes to America. Knish (pronounced kin-ish) is a Yiddish word that was derived from the Russian knysh means "kind of bun." It is described in the Oxford Dictionary of Foreign Words and Phrases as "a baked or fried dumpling made of flaky dough with filling." The first knish bakery was founded in New York in 1910."

A knish consists of a filling covered with dough that is either baked, grilled, or deep fried. Knishes can be purchased from street vendors in urban areas with a large Jewish population, sometimes at a hot dog stand. In the most traditional versions, the filling is made entirely of mashed potato, ground meat, sauerkraut, onions, kasha (buckwheat groats) or cheese. More modern varieties of fillings feature sweet potatoes, black beans, fruit, broccoli, tofu or spinach. Many cultures have variations on baked, grilled, or fried dough-covered snacks similar to the knish: the Cornish pasty, the Scottish Bridie, the Jamaican patty, the Spanish and Latin American empanada, the Portuguese rissole, the Italian calzone, the South Asian samosa, the Russian pirozhki, and the Levantine fatayer. Knishes may be round, rectangular or square. They may be entirely covered in dough or some of the filling may peek out of the top. Sizes range from those that can be eaten in a single bite hors d'oeuvre to sandwich-sized.

• The Chinese Woman

ELAINE: [pause] You know, everybody listens to the Chinese. I mean, look at the fortune cookie. You couldn't get away with that in any other restaurant.

JERRY: Yeah, no one's reading any rolled-up messages in a knish..

[lenka]

Many cultures have variations on baked, grilled, or fried dough-covered snacks similar to the knish: the Cornish pasty, the Scottish Bridie, the Jamaican patty, the Spanish and Latin American empanada, the Portuguese rissole, the Italian calzone, the South Asian samosa

Middle Europe modification
Bon Apetite!

[lenka]

These nebulae can be seen with binoculars from a dark location. Look northeast of bright star Deneb in the constellation Cygnus the Swan.

The very bright star on the right side in these map I attached a few posts earlier is exactly Deneb.

[neufer]

These nebulae can be seen with binoculars from a dark location. Look northeast of bright star Deneb in the constellation Cygnus the Swan.

The very bright star on the right side in these map I attached a few posts earlier is exactly Deneb.

Deneb at 3000 light years away is the furthest bright Alpha star in the sky.

http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap070920.html
http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap090627.html
http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap080416.html
http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap090912.html
http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap101119.html

[NoelC]

Deneb – Bright Star in Cygnus

The head of the Cygnus cross, and the 19th brightest star in our night sky, Deneb is one of the most luminous stars known in terms of absolute brightness. It is enormously brilliant – and simply enormous as well! Estimated at over 100,000 times the luminosity of our Sun, and 200 to 300 times the diameter, its surface would reach the orbit of Earth if it were in the position of our Sun. Deneb's mass is estimated at 20 to 25 times that of our Sun.

Our Sun's surface temperature is 5,800 degrees Kelvin. Blue-white Deneb, with its surface temperature a much hotter 9,000 degrees Kelvin, is emitting 5 times as much energy from each square meter of its much larger surface, consuming its nuclear fuel at such a rapid rate that it will last only a few million years before going supernova.

-Noel

[Rosemary]

Strange enhancement of this nebulae.........looks to me more like a Hungry Trog and a Rat with a tail........

[Guest]

Hello! I've never posted here before, but I had to because after "seeing" North America, I started seeing a Frankenstein-like head instead, with mouth open, large teeth, jutting chin, and indications of both an eye and ear. The head is tilted down toward the right, and Florida would be the lower jaw. Is it just me, or can you folks see it too?

To me it is a much stronger figure than North America, at least in this particular image.

Mark

[Chris Peterson]

Hello! I've never posted here before, but I had to because after "seeing" North America, I started seeing a Frankenstein-like head instead, with mouth open, large teeth, jutting chin, and indications of both an eye and ear. The head is tilted down toward the right, and Florida would be the lower jaw. Is it just me, or can you folks see it too?

Oh my gosh! And it's about to eat a little baby elephant!

To me it is a much stronger figure than North America, at least in this particular image.

Seriously, it's worth keeping in mind that most of these famous nebulas were named based on their visual appearance through an eyepiece, or from their appearance on early film images, which were B&W, fairly low resolution, and low dynamic range. Many of these objects require quite a bit more imagination to see when imaged using modern techniques.

[Star*Hopper]

Seriously, it's worth keeping in mind that most of these famous nebulas were named based on their visual appearance through an eyepiece, or from their appearance on early film images, which were B&W, fairly low resolution, and low dynamic range. Many of these objects require quite a bit more imagination to see when imaged using modern techniques.

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A bit beyond the topic, but then not so much as dietary excursions ....
a bit of a challenge for our learned guests here:
Does anyone happen to know who coined the term 'Rosette' for the NGC 2237 molecular cloud complex?
It's appearance makes it obvious why, but specifically, who named it that??
*^*

[NoelC]

There's always some confusion as to whether NGC 2237 is just part of it or refers to the whole thing... Being very specific, there isn't just one designation for the whole nebula. The multiple designations imply it was originally discovered in pieces. I certainly have no idea who named it the "Rosette".

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rosette_Nebula



-Noel