Post
by Ann » Tue Apr 03, 2012 6:27 am
Again, some belated comments.
Another fine image of M106 and a number of its "companion galaxies" (though most are line-of-sight companions)! Thanks, avdhoeven! Your image confirms that there is a large red emission nebula at one end of the bar of the small satellite galaxy, NGC 4248. Like you said in your own comment, there is a lot of splendid detail in your image!
Mmmm, Mario Weigand, I like it! You are of course right that Merak is a blue star. At 9,000 degrees Kelvin it is about 3,200 degrees hotter than the Sun, and if it were closer to us, so that it made our color vision react, we couldn't fail to see that it is quite blue. And what a skyscape that is with bright star Merak, galaxy M108 and planetary nebula M97! Fine details can be seen in both the galaxy and the planetary.
Stefano Focosi, thanks for going to the trouble of making a three frame mosaic of the Leo Triplet! It looks very fine.
That's a beautiful Orion Nebula, Hata Sung!
Ah, Vegastar, those are three lovely images of Paris and the sky! The Eiffel Tower "spitting light" and that magnificent fountain look splendid below the Moon, Venus and Jupiter. The sunset image is very beautiful, too. And I really like the Pleiades next to Venus, too!
Leonardo Orazi, I have commented on your image before. It is a very fine portrait of galaxies NGC 3718 and and 3729. You bring out the starforming ring of dust in NGC 3718 and contrasts it with the overall transparency of NGC 3718. The red ring that you have spotted in NGC 3718 - and I didn't quite get what you were talking about before - is almost certainly real. I'd say its the remnant of a previous starburst ring around the nucleus of NGC 3718. Many galaxies have such rings, but usually the rings are blue in color from ongoing star formation. In the case of NGC 3718, the nuclear star formation has ceased long ago, but a bright ring where the "stellar density" is high remains. (However, I think that the red color of your ring isn't real, because there is a dust lane crossing the ring that makes it look red.)
Ignacio Diaz Bobillo, I'm impressed that you have taken such a fine image of Omega Centauri from a suburb.
Josh Knutson and Salvatore Grasso, that's a fine image of the Cocoon nebula and its vicinity.
Manuel Jimenez, that's a very fine image of NGC 2403! And I like the name, the small M33.
Marco Lorenzi, what an interesting picture! I had to go to your homepage to find more information about it. We are in the constellation Musca, deep in the southern sky, and the small red "comet-like" thing above one of the bright blue stars in the image is a starforming region called IC 2966. It seems unlikely, I agree, that the large filamentary nebula is ionized the small star forming region. The large red "spaghetti structure" looks like a supernova remnant to me. In any case, what an interesting part of the sky this is, and what a fine picture!
Dirk, I checked out your Sunflower galaxy on your own homepage, and the full resolution image is beautiful indeed.
Rafael Rodriguez, that's a very handsome portrait of magnificent galaxy M101!
RobertoPorto, that's a very striking image of a windmill and the conjunction between the Moon and Venus!
Thanks to everyone who contributed images here!
Ann
Color Commentator
