Where am I?

[Beyond]

haha, it doesn't matter, Ann, if it was a blue star or not. I went as far as i could. I just can't think of any blue nebulas. When it's revealed, I'll probably say, oh, that. But i just don't have enough of a conscious remembrance about details of space stuff to 'get-it'. The ol' noggin is just too full of other things.

[Beyond]

Well that's really neat, Ann A blue sad snowman with a snowflake tear and a very red cardinal on it's shoulder. For me... zilch, nada, zero. But for someone else... who knows.

[Moonlady]

If you are a nebula, do you reflect or emanate?

[Ann]

I'm not a mirror! I shine!


Ann

[starstruck]

Vaguer . . . no, I meant to say Vega!!

[MargaritaMc]

http://annesastronomynews.com/annes-pic ... -ngc-1491/

Click to view full size image

Am I warm??
Margarita

Ps - the blue isn't as blue on this copy as on the original that I saw but the original is too big to link. And is by a different photographer!
http://www.space.com/20113-blue-nebula- ... photo.html
This is a link to a stunning image by Bill Snyder

[Ann]

Unfortunately you are quite cold, Margarita! And since NGC 1491 is an emission nebula and dominated by red Ha emission, I personally would never call it blue.

The object I'm asking for is indeed an emission nebula, but a special kind of emission nebula and not a red one!

Here's a cold clue:

Click to view full size image

Source: http://www.ranaldofamily.com/fun_stuff/ ... owball.htm

Ann

[MargaritaMc]

Well, I am completely out of ideas! And the clue just made me even more puzzled.
Margarita

[bystander]

I defer.

Blue Snowball Nebula

[Ann]

You got it, bystander!

Ann

[Beyond]

WOW, there really is a Blue snowball nebula.

Click to play embedded YouTube video.

[starstruck]

Oh well, I tried, but I now see I was barking up the wrong tree / astronomical object !! . . . not even close!

I have never heard of the Blue Snowball Nebula! This game is way beyond my abilities! . . but not beyond Beyond's

[Ann]

Let me explain my clues. I wrote:

They say I'm blue
but I don't know
I'm past my prime
but in my time
I was blue, oh, oh!
At least I think so.
Can't really remember
cause I'm a member
of the living dead!

The Blue Snowball is a planetary nebula, a brilliant blue-green OIII-dominated nebula ionized by an extremely hot white dwarf. White dwarfs are "dead stars", hot burnt-out stellar cores which radiate heat and light, but can't generate any new energy. Their extreme ultraviolet radiation ionizes their cast-off outer layers and makes them shine either red or blue-green, or both. The Blue Snowball is predominantly the blue-green kind. I would guess that the progenitor of the Blue Snowball was more massive than the Sun and therefore blue back when it was a normal star (since I regard all stars hotter than the Sun as blue), but I can't be sure of the progenitor's main sequence spectral class.

So why is a planetary nebula described as a snowball? Well, your guess is as good as mine!

Ann

[MargaritaMc]

what_am_I.jpg

I sometimes browse the Apod archives - and I now have a program that can crop images...
Margarita

[Beyond]

Spending time in the APOD archives A program that crops images My brain is already tired from realizing the things that you are going to be coming up with for us to figure out.
Your first clue looks familiar, but that's about it for me. I don't even remember why the image looks like that.

[Ann]

Click to view full size image

Well, the picture you are asking about is clearly a crop of a picture photographed in such a way as to make stars progressively "blurrier" and thus bring out their colors more clearly.

I did a quick search for your picture, Margarita, but I couldn't find it. However, David Malin pioneered a similar technique. This is his picture of Orion. It is very popular to photograph Orion with this particular technique, due to the fact that Betelgeuse will stand out so nicely orangeish among all the blue stars, and the Orion Nebula will look deliciously pink, too. That's why I think that your picture, too, might feature Orion, and the star we are looking at just might be Rigel.

It the picture is not a crop of Orion, then my guess would be that it is a crop of Crux, the Southern Cross. We might be looking at Acrux.

Ann

[Moonlady]

Is it the complete picture or a part of it?

[Ann]

It is just a part of a picture. Margarita said that she has a program that can crop images, that means cut details, out of larger pictures.

Ann

[MargaritaMc]

Orion_cartoon.jpg

Clever Ann!

http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap110211.html




Can you say which star? (I hope I can remember correctly!)


Margarita

[Ann]

Well, it certainly looks like Rigel!

Rigel is the bright star at lower right.

Ann

[MargaritaMc]

Well, it certainly looks like Rigel!

Rigel is the bright star at lower right.

Ann

You are - of course! - correct! *****
(I was joking when I said I might not remember... I love Rigel!)
Margarita

[Ann]

Yes, I like it too, although it's not my favorite star - there are others that are bluer, you know!

Can't resist posting another riddle...

Click to view full size image

We are fraternal quadruplets!

We come in peace - eh, I mean, we come in pairs!

We believe in equality. We are pretty equal.

And, hint, hint - we like music, too!

Ann

[MargaritaMc]

Post script

Rigel, also known by its Bayer designation Beta Orionis (β Ori, β Orionis), is the brightest star in the constellation Orion and the sixth brightest star in the night sky, with visual magnitude 0.12. The star as seen from Earth is actually a triple star system, with the primary star (Rigel A) a blue-white supergiant of absolute magnitude −7.84 and around 130,000 times[12][4] as luminous as the Sun. An Alpha Cygni variable, it pulsates periodically. Visible in small telescopes, Rigel B is itself a spectroscopic binary system, consisting of two main sequence blue-white stars of spectral type B9.
Although Rigel has the Bayer designation "beta", it is almost always brighter than Alpha Orionis (Betelgeuse). Since 1943, the spectrum of this star has served as one of the stable anchor points by which other stars are classified.[13]

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

I know that Ann will know MUCH more than this, but this is for less knowledgeable people - such as I was less than a year ago when I very first properly SAW Rigel.
M

PPS. Ah - I see that Ann is posting at the same time that I am - with a new riddle.

[Moonlady]

Yes, I like it too, although it's not my favorite star - there are others that are bluer, you know!

Can't resist posting another riddle...

Click to view full size image

We are fraternal quadruplets!

We come in peace - eh, I mean, we come in pairs!

We believe in equality. We are pretty equal.

And, hint, hint - we like music, too!

Ann

I guess: Epsilon Lyrae, the Double Double

The widest two components of the system are easily separated when viewed through binoculars, or even with the naked eye under excellent conditions.[1] The northern star is called ε1 and the southern one is called ε2; they both lie around 162 light years from Earth and orbit each other. When viewed at higher magnifications, both stars of the binary can be further split into binaries; that is, the system contains two binary stars orbiting each other.

[Ann]

Epsilon Lyrae.
Source: http://www.themcdonalds.net/richard/ind ... ilon_Lyrae

Moonlady wrote:
I guess: Epsilon Lyrae, the Double Double

You got it, Moonlady!

Ann