Thanks geckzilla for that explanation , as it confirms what I had thought that the whiskers would not be the spikes.geckzilla wrote:The six lines which change orientation in one of the three frames of the animation are artifacts. They include the usual x-shaped diffraction pattern created by the struts holding up Hubble's secondary mirror and then one line bisecting them which is a charge bleed caused by electrons overflowing in the detector itself due to the extreme brightness of the star. BTW, here is the animation on a forever loop that won't stop after only 5 plays.star struk wrote:Eta Carina picture shows lines arranged in a hexagon pattern from star. Are these the 'whiskers' refered to in picture description?
http://www.geckzilla.com/astro/CarinaEx ... orever.gif
I do wonder though where the "streaming whiskers" are in the image, as the explanation in mentioning them would seem to imply that they are obvious features.