Hubble's Hidden Treasures Contest 2012

[geckzilla]

I don't know precisely what this is. It's possibly HH (Herbig Haro) 909A. I am pretty sure it is a Herbig Haro object but just not sure on the actual ID. It does look very nice, though, even if the composition is strange. It's located in Chameleon.
F775W
F850LP

[geckzilla]

IRAS20324+4057
It's a tadpole.

F814W
F606W

[Ann]

Tadpole.

Tadpoles.

Tadpole galaxy.

Tadpole star?

What's your tadpole?

Ann

[geckzilla]

http://arxiv.org/abs/1201.5067

[Ann]

http://arxiv.org/abs/1201.5067

We conclude that I 20324 and its associates are EGGs. EGGs are likely to be the surviving dense portions of their parent molecular clouds, and as such, they should be predominantly molecular, as observed in our objects. While the original concept of EGGs shows them as having elongated tails that connect them continuously with the elephant trunks in M16, this is due to the ionizing sources in M16 being concentrated in one direction relative to the EGGs. However, the presence of multiple ionizing sources distributed over a large solid angle relative to the EGGs, as in Cyg OB2, results in a diffuse radiation field that eventually pinches off their tails – a possibility noted by Hester et al. (1996), and supported by numerical simulations (e.g., Ercolano & Gritschneder 2011) – creating “free-floating” EGGs, such as the Tadpole and its associates.

Here, in M16, there be EGGs. Photo: HST.

I 20324 is an embedded star in the "tadpole head" in geckzilla's picture. It is a moderately massive star that will likely turn into a late B-type star, perhaps like Regulus.

EGGs are, of course, small dense remnants of a large molecular cloud. These dense cores are being compressed by radiation from nearby hot stars, so that stars are being born in the EGGs.

The EGGs in the picture of M16 are connected to elephant trunks and are not free-floating tadpoles.


Ann

[geckzilla]

Mrk 1034. From what I gather, the top left one is Mrk 1034SW while the lower right is Mrk 1034NE.
Blue F435W, Red F814W, Pseudogreen

[Ann]

Fascinating galaxies, geckzilla!

I tried to check them with my software, but these galaxies are so faint (around fifteenth magnitude) that my software doesn't have much relevant information about them. Or, more precisely, my software has almost no color information about them! If you don't know anything about the color of a galaxy, how can you know anything about it?

Okay. My software did say two things. The slightly brighter of the two galaxies, the one to the upper left, is very bright in far infrared light. It is almost four magnitudes brighter in far infrared light than in blue light. That's a lot. It means that the galaxy contains copious amounts of dust. It could also mean, although we can't be absolutely certain, that it is very rich in star formation.

Oh, wait, I take that back! Of course this galaxy is rich in star formation! Your image shows us that it is, since it reveals all those large bright blue knots!

The other galaxy certainly looks blue in your image! It is definitely forming a lot of new stars. It appears to contain less dust than its neighbour, and it may just possibly be about to use up its reservoir of gas and dust, although its distorted shape suggests that it is still bursting with star formation. And again, we don't have to guess - your image shows us large brilliant young clusters. And I take back what I said about its lack of dust - your image certainly shows us that there is no shortage of it!

Ann

[geckzilla]

The reading I've done indicates that Mrk 1034 is a Seyfert galaxy, though they never specify whether it's just one or both. And the designation of Mrk itself means they are Markarian galaxies, which, given their nature, I would be surprised if you didn't know that already.

[avdhoeven]

Here is the final result of my M106 hubble processing. Unfortunately the F435W and F814W data were not clean enough to generate a good color image. So I decided to combine the Hubble data with groundbased data.
This is comparable with what was done with the famous Eta Carina image of Hubble where also groundbased data was used for the color information.

The luminance image was made using the F555W ACS data of project ID 11570 of Adam Riess. 14 images were used to create the mosaic.

For the color data a ground based image made with a 20'' telescope at Kitt Peak was used. This image was used with the kind permission of Adam Block.

Processing and data retrieval: André van der Hoeven
Luminance layer: Hubble legacy archive/NASA/ESA
Color layer: Adrian Zsilavec and Michelle Qualls/Adam Block/NOAO/AURA/NSF

The full resolution can be found here ...

[Ann]

Wow, that's great, André. Such a huge image bursting with detail!

Ann

[geckzilla]

Nice job filling in the color data, Andre. Shame you had to combine such low res color data with such high res luminance data. You can see it suffers a little but I think it was worth the effort. Hope you aren't burnt out after that.

NGC 5005 with F814W and F658N with a pseudogreen channel. Pretty standard galaxy. I thought the tattered blue bits coming out of the core were slightly unusual. You can see them faintly in the full resolution image.

[geckzilla]

NGC 6946
F814W and F658N with pseudogreen channel. Used some WFPC data to fill in the gaps on the ACS data, so if you notice a odd band going across the center of the image, that's why.

[geckzilla]

NGC 7217
F814W and F658N with pseudogreen channel.

[geckzilla]

It feels like there are endless galaxies such as these last few in Hubble's archive.
NGC 1097
F814W and F658N with pseudogreen channel.

[Beyond]

WoW!, geckzilla, this one must have been almost on the bottom of the pile. Look at all the dust it's collected, and that nice blue ring of stars around the the center.

[Ann]

So many interesting galaxies, geckzilla!

I agree with your assessment that NGC 5005 is a pretty standard galaxy. Here is some of its vital statistics:

B magnitude: 10.606
B-v: 0.80
U-B: 0.37
Far infrared: 9.671
Surface brightness on a scale from 1 to 6: 1
Size: 6.30 x 3.0 arcminutes

So we are dealing with an inclined galaxy with somewhat red colors - the U-B value of 0.37, coupled with a B-V value of 0.80. suggests that star formation is certainly present but not very strong. The far infrared magnitude is one magnitude brighter than the blue magnitude, suggesting that the galaxy is certainly not lacking in gas and dust, but the galaxy will appear brighter in far infrared due to its inclined position. Its inclined position will also increase the galaxy's surface brightness. Like you said, unremarkable.

The intrinsic color of NGC 5005 is yellow-white, and the bulge near the nucleus is clearly yellow. But I appreciate that it looks gray in your picture, because it proves that you did your best with the exposures that were available to you. Your reddest channel had to be the far infrared channel, 814W. But the yellow bulge of a galaxy is never very bright in far infrared light, and it is probably not brighter in far infrared light than in Ha light. Hence the bulge of NGC 5005 simply could not look yellow.

You thought that the blue "bits" coming out of the galaxy's core were unusual. They may be unusual, but they are not unique. Remember that what we are seeing is red Ha emission coming out of the central part of the galaxy. M106 has such Ha outflows, although in that case the red outflows appears to emanate a bit farther out from the nucleus. And what about M82, the champion red light spitting galaxy of the nearby cosmos?

Compare NGC 5005 with 6946! How different they are! Let's check out the vital statistics of NGC 6946:

B magnitude: 9.694
B-V: 0.80
Effective U-B (tends to be redder than total U-B): 0.11
Far infrared: 7.642
Surface brightness: 2 on a scale of 1 to 6
Size: 14 x 14 arcminutes

So NGC 6946 has exactly the same B-V index as NGC 5005. But NGC 6946 is considerably bluer in U-B than NGC 5005, and likely much bluer, since my software won't tell me the total U-B index of NGC 6946. This most certainly suggests that NGC 6946 has a lot more star formation than NGC 5005.

NGC 6946 is two magnitudes brighter in far infrared than in blue light. NGC 5005 is one magnitude brighter in far infrared than in blue light. But we see NGC 6946 face on. Face-on galaxies tend to appear fainter in far infrared light than galaxies that are considerably inclined. Consider richly starforming galaxy M101, for example. M101 is only 0.2 magnitudes brighter in far infrared light than in blue light. M100, another face-on starforming spiral, is 0.23 magnitudes brighter in far infrared than in blue light. NGC 6946 is two magnitudes brighter in far infrared than in blue light, which is a lot. Admittedly the fact that we see NGC 6946 through dust in the Milky Way could affect the apparent far infrared magnitude of NGC 6946.

Anyway, this is my point. NGC 6946 is dusty, more so than NGC 5005. NGC 6946 is also richly starforming, more so than NGC 5005. NGC 6946 has a lower surface brightness than NGC 5005, although admittedly galaxies that are seen face on always have a pretty low surface brightness. The surface brightness of NGC 6946 is low partly because the light of that galaxy is spread out over a much larger patch of sky than the light of NGC 5005.

And indeed, your picture of NGC 6946 shows all of this perfectly! Most of the galaxy looks quite faint, due to the low surface brightness of it. The galaxy is full of blue, that is red, emission nebulae. These nebulae have various interesting shapes, many of them contorted, and many of them shell-like. Some of the nebulae seem to be connected with far infrared sources, where the earliest stages of star formation would be going on. Fascinating!

NGC 7217 is a so-called flocculent galaxy, where small star formation regions are chaotically spread in a swirling but chaotic dust structure. Your picture shows it well. I like the soft-looking small blue "clouds" on each side of the nucleus.

NGC 1097, wow! Look at that brilliant blue ring of star formation near the nucleus! And Beyond is right, the general reddish color of the interior part of the galaxy suggests that there is a lot of dust there!

Thank you for processing all these galaxies for us, geckzilla!

Ann

[geckzilla]

NGC 1068 aka M77
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Messier_77
F814W and F658N with pseudogreen channel.

[Ann]

Another great galaxy picture, geckzilla. M77 is a very "powerful" galaxy, with an active center. It looks powerful in your image! And note the "blue bits" coming out of the active nucleus.

Ann

[avdhoeven]

I succeeded in upgrading my M106 image with Ha data from the Hubble. This makes the red signal better detailed and improves the quality of the image in my opinion:



Full resolution:

http://zoom.it/mS6j

[Ann]

Nice, André!

Ann

[geckzilla]

It's definitely better, Andre!

As for me, trying to avoid some spiral galaxies for a moment. XZ Tauri is the spikey star with the stuff around it. It's actually two stars. I don't know what the blue area to the upper right of it is.

XZ Tauri
F625W and F658N with pseudogreen channel.


Across the frame a bit and separated by a lot of black space and the infamous black bar that goes across most ACS images is HH 30.
HH 30
F625W and F658N with pseudogreen channel.

[Ann]

More good pictures, geckzilla!

I checked out XZ Tauri, and it is a very young double star that has blown a bubble. The bubble can be seen to the upper left in your picture, although I can see something at the lower right, too.

The HH thing looks like a small accretion disk covering a small star which is emitting two jets in opposite directions.

Ann

[geckzilla]

Yup, Ann, that's what Herbig-Haro objects are. I think the accretion disk is optional but usually present.

NGC 3432

F625W and F658N with pseudogreen channel.

[Ann]

Oh, NGC 3432! That's a very blue galaxy. For a very blue galaxy it is moderately large, half the brighness of the Milky Way. Unfortunately my software won't say anything about the far infrared magnitude of NGC 3432, which makes it hard to judge how much fresh star formation is just getting started in it. Judging from you picture, however, there are definitely dark dust lanes in it. Nevertheless, in view of the fact that we see this galaxy edge on, there isn't that much dust.

The F658N channel traces emission nebulae, so all those orangish clouds we see mark the presence of hot young stars. As for what the F625W filter is supposed to detect, however, I don't know. I think that was a moderately poor choice, filter-wise.

But it's a great picture!

Ann

[geckzilla]

NGC 2023 "Sunset Glow" The official processors already did this but it's such a striking image that I wanted to try it myself. I noticed there was some infrared data for part of the area the flare covers so I used that luminance data to see through the flare and reduce it quite a bit, recovering some of the reflection nebula texture below. It was actually a lot easier than it sounds. I had to crop it to a landscape because the flare extended well past the infrared data and it looked awkward otherwise.