Test Your Astronomy Chops Quiz Discussion

[owlice]

This thread is for discussion of the Quiz: How many of these astronomical objects can you name? images.

If you post answers here, please use the "spoiler" tag around your answers (highlight your answers then click the spoiler button above) to hide your answers. Thanks!

[Ann]

Well, here are my answers.

1)

the Big Dipper.

2) A starscape showing us

Orion, Aurigae with Capella, the Hyades. the Pleaides (faintly).

I guess we are also seeing a bit of

Gemini the Twins and Monocerous the Unicorn,

although I can't really recognize their shapes. We can also see

Beta Eridani

to the right of

Rigel

. But there is a point of light between

Orion

and

the Hyades

that I don't recognize at all. It can't be a planet, because it is too far from the ecliptic. Unless it is

Mercury

? But isn't it too bright for that?

3)

Mars

, obviously. Surely I shouldn't have to put that in spoilers? But what vehicle made those tracks? It could be either

Spirit

or

Opportunity

as far as I'm concerned, but since

Opportunity

is the most succesful of the two I guess I'll have to vote for that.

4)

the Horsehead nebula in infrared

, peeking out above

reflection nebula NGC 2023

.

5)

the Andromeda galaxy in infrared

.

6)

Neptune

.

7)

The Iris nebula

.

8)

Io. Look at that blue plume from an erupting volcano!

9)

Hoag's object

.

10)

Thor's Helmet, also known as NGC 2359

.

11)

Mimas

with its large crater

Herschel

.

12)

Star forming region N90 in the Small Magellanic Cloud.

The cluster inside is

NGC 602

.

Number thirteen caused me a headache. A planetary nebula. Not my thing. I found something on the net, which said that this is

IC 418

.

14)

The Eta Carina nebula

, a huge region in space. You can make out the shape of the

Keyhole nebula

inside.

15)

The Umbrella galaxy, NGC 4651

, taken by brilliant astrophotographer

R Jay GaBany

.

16)

Cen A, NGC 5128

. This should be a

Canada-France-Hawaii Telescope

image.

Number seventeen is another planetary. [pouts] Well, I seem to remember from somewhere that this might be a creepy-crawly thing, namely

the Ant Nebula

.

18)

The Sun in ultraviolet light

.

Ann

[NoelC]

My answers:

1. Stars in my image of the Big Dipper or Plough, a well-recognized Asterism that's part of Ursa Major, taken with a Canon EOS 20D and 17-40 zoom lens at f/4 from a dark spot on the south shore of Lake Okeechobee in Florida in February 2006.

2. An evening shot of the nearby horizon and the sky (noting the crescent moon) showing several constellations including Orion, likely taken somewhere near where Jerry Lodriguss lives.

3. Tracks of the Mars Rover Opportunity on a dust dune on Mars, taken by Opportunity herself.

4. An infrared false color image of the B33 (Horsehead) area in Orion. The transparent-looking (at these wavelengths) dusty head of the horse can be seen just above the clouds at the upper-right. Taken with the ISOCAM imager at (I think) Stockholm Observatory.

5. A wide field infrared false color image of M33, the Andromeda Galaxy and intervening Milky Way stars, taken by the Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE) satellite.

6. The planet Neptune showing clouds encircling an extraterrestrial cyclone near the south pole, taken (I think) through the Hubble Space Telescope.

7. A high resolution image of the Iris Nebula (NGC 7023) in Cepheus showing reflection (blue) and emission (red) nebulae, along with dark (dust) nebulae, taken through the Canada-France-Hawaii Telescope (CFHT).

8. Jupiter's satellite Io showing emissions and glow from the volcano Tvashtar at the upper-right, taken by the New Horizons spacecraft.

9. An unusual ring galaxy called Hoag's Object, or PGC 54559, in Serpens. Taken with the Hubble Space Telescope.

10. Thor's Helmet, aka NGC 2359, a nebula emitted by an unstable Wolf-Rayet (WR) star. A somewhat false color image (it's skewed to red/magenta) taken by Don Goldman through a RCOS 16" Ritchey-Cretien telescope using narrow band filters for Hydrogen Alpha, Oxygen III, and also combined with RGB visual color exposures.

11. Not the Death Star, but Saturn's satellite Mimas showing the huge 140 km wide Herschel Crater. Taken by the Cassini spacecraft.

12. Star cluster NGC 602 and surrounding nebula, in Hydrus near the Small Magellanic Cloud. False color image taken through the Hubble Space Telescope.

13. IC 418 aka The Spirograph Nebula in constellation Lepus. Taken through the Hubble Space Telescope.

14. The Great Nebula in Carina (Carina Nebula) in southern skies. Taken through the CTIO Curtis-Schmidt Telescope in Chile.

15. The Umbrella Galaxy, aka NGC 4651, showing a spiral galaxy likely consuming another, smaller one. Taken by R Jay GaBany through the 2.5 meter Issac Newton telescope the 0.5 meter Blackbird Observatory telescope.

16. Centaurus A, aka NGC 5128, lenticular galaxy with prominent dust lane in the constellation Centaurus. Not sure who took this image, but it looks like those made with the CFHT.

17. The Ant Nebula, aka MZ 3 (Menzel 3), which is a bipolar planetary nebula I have always thought greatly resembles the nebula of Eta Carinae. This is clearly a high resolution Hubble Space Telescope image as the object is quite small.

18. Our own Sun, aka Sol, imaged in ultraviolet light by the Solar Dynamics Observatory.

-Noel

[NoelC]

I'd love to see more folks participate in this. Maybe popping it back to the top of the list will elicit some more interest...

Edit: Oops! Looks like the source images are gone.

-Noel

[bystander]

Edit: Oops! Looks like the source images are gone.

No, they are here!

[owlice]

Except that here was sequestered out of sight. I've just moved the quiz thread into public view again, so anyone who wants to play, have at it!

Noel, I'd forgotten all about this! Hmmmm, I wonder if I ever made an answer thread...?