Found Images: 2015 January

[owlice]

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Have you seen a great image or video somewhere that you think would make a great APOD? Nominate it for APOD! Please post as much information here as you have about the image/video with a link to any source(s) for it you know of here, and the editors will take a look.

When posting the image itself, please do not post anything larger than a thumbnail here; please honor the copyright holder's copyright.

Please keep hotlinked images under 400K.

Thank you!

[starsurfer]

Sailboat Cluster (NGC 225)
http://billsnyderastrophotography.com/?page_id=4365
Copyright: Bill Snyder

[starsurfer]

LBN 406
http://www.capella-observatory.com/Imag ... 406FSQ.htm
Copyright: Stefan Binnewies and Josef Pöpsel

This is a high latitude dust cloud that is also known as the Draco Cloud.

[starsurfer]

M85
http://www.astrobin.com/113522/
Copyright: Mark Elvov

NGC 4394 is the spiral galaxy to the left of this shell elliptical galaxy.

[bystander]

Wings for Science Fly Over APEX
ESO POTW | APEX | 2015 Jan 05

Credit: Clem & Adri Bacri-Normier ([url=http://wingsforscience.com/]Wings forScience[/url])/ESO

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High on the Chajnantor Plateau in Chile’s Atacama region, at a breathtaking altitude of 5100 metres, ESO operates the Atacama Pathfinder Experiment telescope, APEX. APEX is a pathfinder for ALMA, the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array, a revolutionary new telescope that ESO, together with its international partners, is now building close to APEX on the Chajnantor Plateau. APEX is based on a prototype 12-metre antenna constructed for the ALMA project, and it is finding many targets that ALMA will be able to study in greater detail.

This spectacular aerial image was taken in December 2012 by Clémentine Bacri and Adrien Normier, the two crew members of the non-profit organisation ORA Wings for Science project, who are flying a special eco-friendly ultralight aeroplane on a year-long journey around the world. While on route, they help out scientists with aerial capabilities ranging from air sampling to archaeology, biodiversity observation and 3D terrain modelling. ...

[bystander]

R Sculptoris and Its Hidden Companion
ESA Hubble POTW | 2015 Jan 05

[b][i]Credit: ESA/Hubble & NASA[/i][/b]

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This new NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope image shows a star known as R Sculptoris, a red giant located 1500 light-years from Earth in the constellation of Sculptor. Recent observations have shown that the material surrounding R Sculptoris actually forms a spiral structure — a phenomenon probably caused by a hidden companion star orbiting the star. Systems with multiple stars often lead to unusual or unexpected morphologies, as seen, for example, in the wide range of striking planetary nebulae that Hubble has imaged.

R Sculptoris is an example of an asymptotic giant branch (AGB) star. All stars with initial masses up to about eight times that of the Sun will eventually become red giants in the later stages of their lives. They start to cool down and lose a large amount of their mass in a steady, dense wind that streams outwards from the star. With this constant loss of material, red giants like R Sculptoris provide a good portion of the raw materials — dust and gas — used for the formation of new generations of stars and planets. They also show what is likely to happen to the Sun in a few billion years from now, and help astronomers to understand how the elements we are made up of are distributed throughout the Universe.

R Sculptoris itself is located outside the plane of the Milky Way and is easily visible using a moderately sized amateur telescope. In this part of the sky far from the galactic plane, there are relatively few stars but many faint and distant galaxies can be seen.

The black region at the centre of the image has been artificially masked.

[bystander]

Revisiting an Icon
ESA Hubble Photo Release | 2015 Jan 05

Hubble captures the Pillars of Creation twenty years on

[b][i]Credit: NASA, ESA/Hubble and the Hubble Heritage Team[/i][/b]

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The NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope has captured many breathtaking images of the Universe, but one snapshot stands out from the rest: the Eagle Nebula’s Pillars of Creation. In 1995 Hubble’s iconic image revealed never-before-seen details in the giant columns and now the telescope is kickstarting its 25th year in orbit with an even clearer, and more stunning, image of these beautiful structures.

The three impressive towers of gas and dust captured in this image are part of the Eagle Nebula, otherwise known as Messier 16. Although such features are not uncommon in star-forming regions, the Messier 16 structures are by far the most photogenic and evocative ever captured. The Hubble image of the pillars taken in 1995 is so popular that it has appeared in film and television, on tee-shirts and pillows, and even on postage stamps.

Now Hubble has revisited the famous pillars, capturing the multi-coloured glow of gas clouds, wispy tendrils of dark cosmic dust, and the rust-coloured elephants’ trunks with the newer Wide Field Camera 3, installed in 2009. The visible-light image builds on one of the most iconic astronomy images ever taken and provides astronomers with an even sharper and wider view. ...

Hubble Goes High Def to Revisit the Iconic 'Pillars of Creation'
NASA | STScI | HubbleSite | 2014 Jan 05

Eagle Nebula • M16
Hubble Heritage | 2014 Jan 05

[bystander]

Andromeda in HD
ESA Hubble Photo Release | 2015 Jan 05

Hubble captures the sharpest ever view of neighbouring spiral Galaxy

[b][i]Credit: NASA, ESA, J. Dalcanton, B. F. Williams, & L. C. Johnson (University of Washington), the PHAT team, and R. Gendler.[/i][/b]

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The NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope has captured the sharpest and biggest image ever taken of the Andromeda galaxy — otherwise known as Messier 31. The enormous image is the biggest Hubble image ever released and shows over 100 million stars and thousands of star clusters embedded in a section of the galaxy’s pancake-shaped disc stretching across over 40 000 light-years.

This sweeping view shows one third of our galactic neighbour, the Andromeda Galaxy, with stunning clarity. The panoramic image has a staggering 1.5 billion pixels — meaning you would need more than 600 HD television screens to display the whole image. It traces the galaxy from its central galactic bulge on the left, where stars are densely packed together, across lanes of stars and dust to the sparser outskirts of its outer disc on the right.

The large groups of blue stars in the galaxy indicate the locations of star clusters and star-forming regions in the spiral arms, whilst the dark silhouettes of obscured regions trace out complex dust structures. Underlying the entire galaxy is a smooth distribution of cooler red stars that trace Andromeda's evolution over billions of years. ...

Hubble's High-Definition Panoramic View of the Andromeda Galaxy
NASA | STScI | HubbleSite | 2014 Jan 05

[Sandgirl]

Anticrepuscular rays
Copyrights: Jennifer Ramm
Suggested by: Bruce Boyce

[geckzilla]

Revisiting an Icon
ESA Hubble Photo Release | 2015 Jan 05

Hubble captures the Pillars of Creation twenty years on

[b][i]Credit: NASA, ESA/Hubble and the Hubble Heritage Team[/i][/b]

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The NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope has captured many breathtaking images of the Universe, but one snapshot stands out from the rest: the Eagle Nebula’s Pillars of Creation. In 1995 Hubble’s iconic image revealed never-before-seen details in the giant columns and now the telescope is kickstarting its 25th year in orbit with an even clearer, and more stunning, image of these beautiful structures.

The three impressive towers of gas and dust captured in this image are part of the Eagle Nebula, otherwise known as Messier 16. Although such features are not uncommon in star-forming regions, the Messier 16 structures are by far the most photogenic and evocative ever captured. The Hubble image of the pillars taken in 1995 is so popular that it has appeared in film and television, on tee-shirts and pillows, and even on postage stamps.

Now Hubble has revisited the famous pillars, capturing the multi-coloured glow of gas clouds, wispy tendrils of dark cosmic dust, and the rust-coloured elephants’ trunks with the newer Wide Field Camera 3, installed in 2009. The visible-light image builds on one of the most iconic astronomy images ever taken and provides astronomers with an even sharper and wider view. ...

Hubble Goes High Def to Revisit the Iconic 'Pillars of Creation'
NASA | STScI | HubbleSite | 2014 Jan 05

Eagle Nebula • M16
Hubble Heritage | 2014 Jan 05

Holy moly, they actually revisited the Eagle Nebula and filled in the chunk of missing data that the old WF/PC2 camera left out of the upper right corner... plus more surrounding nebula! ...plus infrared!!!

[starsurfer]

Revisiting an Icon
ESA Hubble Photo Release | 2015 Jan 05

Hubble captures the Pillars of Creation twenty years on

[b][i]Credit: NASA, ESA/Hubble and the Hubble Heritage Team[/i][/b]

---

The NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope has captured many breathtaking images of the Universe, but one snapshot stands out from the rest: the Eagle Nebula’s Pillars of Creation. In 1995 Hubble’s iconic image revealed never-before-seen details in the giant columns and now the telescope is kickstarting its 25th year in orbit with an even clearer, and more stunning, image of these beautiful structures.

The three impressive towers of gas and dust captured in this image are part of the Eagle Nebula, otherwise known as Messier 16. Although such features are not uncommon in star-forming regions, the Messier 16 structures are by far the most photogenic and evocative ever captured. The Hubble image of the pillars taken in 1995 is so popular that it has appeared in film and television, on tee-shirts and pillows, and even on postage stamps.

Now Hubble has revisited the famous pillars, capturing the multi-coloured glow of gas clouds, wispy tendrils of dark cosmic dust, and the rust-coloured elephants’ trunks with the newer Wide Field Camera 3, installed in 2009. The visible-light image builds on one of the most iconic astronomy images ever taken and provides astronomers with an even sharper and wider view. ...

Hubble Goes High Def to Revisit the Iconic 'Pillars of Creation'
NASA | STScI | HubbleSite | 2014 Jan 05

Eagle Nebula • M16
Hubble Heritage | 2014 Jan 05

Holy moly, they actually revisited the Eagle Nebula and filled in the chunk of missing data that the old WF/PC2 camera left out of the upper right corner... plus more surrounding nebula! ...plus infrared!!!

It's amazing what can be done in the 21st century! I fondly remember the original image along with a few other HST images from the 90's, I think there was a nice closeup of NGC 1365 and also a starcloud in NGC 253 as well as other more well known ones such as the Cartwheel Galaxy and the Cat's Eye Nebula. I'm surprised there isn't a Hubble image of the R Aquarii Nebula.

Also geckzilla, for some reason I imagine you eating a large sandwich whilst saying "Holy moly"?!

[starsurfer]

Soap Bubble Nebula (PN G075.5+01.7)
http://www.martinpughastrophotography.id.au
Copyright: Martin Pugh

This planetary nebula is also known as Ju 1, named after its discoverer, the amateur astronomer Dave Jurasevich.

[geckzilla]

Also geckzilla, for some reason I imagine you eating a large sandwich whilst saying "Holy moly"?!

Maths are bothering me too much right now to be eating large sandwiches or much of anything.

[starsurfer]

Also geckzilla, for some reason I imagine you eating a large sandwich whilst saying "Holy moly"?!

Maths are bothering me too much right now to be eating large sandwiches or much of anything.

That makes me a little sad.
Are you training to be a professional astronomer? You have the potential and intelligence to be one!

[geckzilla]

That makes me a little sad.
Are you training to be a professional astronomer? You have the potential and intelligence to be one!

Not really, just taking an online course a little too seriously. I tend to forget to eat when busy trying to figure something out. It's a very nerdy accidental diet.

[bystander]

Click to play embedded YouTube video.

Revisiting an Icon
ESA Hubble Photo Release | 2015 Jan 05

Hubble Goes High Def to Revisit the Iconic 'Pillars of Creation'
NASA | STScI | HubbleSite | 2014 Jan 05

Eagle Nebula • M16
Hubble Heritage | 2014 Jan 05

Hubblecast 82: New view of the Pillars of Creation
HubbleESA | Hubblecast | 2015 Jan 05

[bystander]

Galactic Herding: New Image Brings Galaxy Diversity to Life
Gemini Observatory Image Release | 2015 Jan 05

[i]Gemini Legacy image of the galaxy group VV 166, obtained using the Gemini Multi-Object Spectrograph (GMOS), at the Gemini North telescope located on Mauna Kea, Hawai‘i. In this image, north is up, east left, and the field of view is 5.2 x 5.2 arcminutes. [b]Composite color image produced by Travis Rector, University of Alaska Anchorage. Image credit: Gemini Observatory/AURA[/b][/i]

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A compelling new image from Gemini Observatory peers into the heart of a group of galaxies (VV166) traveling through space together. The variety of galactic forms range from a perfect spiral, to featureless blobs and present, at a glance, a sampling of the diversity and evolution of galaxies.

Galaxy groups are the most evident structures in the nearby universe. They are important laboratories for studying how galaxies form and evolve beyond our own Local Group of galaxies, which includes the Milky Way and the Great Spiral in Andromeda. Exploring the nature of these extragalactic “herds” may help to unlock the secrets to the overall structure of the universe.

Unlike animal herds, which are generally the same species traveling together, most galaxies move through space in associations comprised of myriad types, shapes, and sizes. Galaxy groups differ in their richness, size, and internal structure as well as the ages of their members. Some group galaxies are composed mainly of ancient stars, while others radiate with the power and splendor of youth.

These facts raise important questions for astronomers: Do all the galaxies in a group share a common origin? Are some just chance alignments? Or do galaxy groups pick up “strays” along the way and amalgamate them into the group?

The new Gemini image, of a grouping called VV 166 provides clarity and definition to the group’s different morphological types despite its great distance of about 300 million light-years – some 30 times farther away than the closest galaxy groups to our Local Group. One of its most fascinating features is a perfect alignment of three disparate galaxies in a precise equilateral triangle: blue-armed spiral NGC 70 at top, elliptical galaxy NGC 68 to its lower right, and lenticular galaxy NGC 71 to its lower left. ...

[MargaritaMc]

Andromeda in HD
ESA Hubble Photo Release | 2015 Jan 05

Hubble captures the sharpest ever view of neighbouring spiral Galaxy

Hubble's High-Definition Panoramic View of the Andromeda Galaxy
NASA | STScI | HubbleSite | 2014 Jan 05

There is an article here in Nature Galaxy seen shuddering from ancient collision. High-resolution portrait of Andromeda reveals patterns of star formation. that includes a video reconstructing star-formation history:

“What's really fantastic about this work is that it is done on small spatial scales, so it's the most finely spatially resolved star-formation history of Andromeda to date,” says Alexia Lewis of the University of Washington. Using the information on dust and the colours of the stars, which together reveal accurate ages of the individual stars, Lewis reconstructed the last half-billion years of star-formation history of the imaged section of Andromeda (see video)
“You can actually see how the star formation moves through the galaxy and changes strength with time,” says Dalcanton.
The biggest surprise in Lewis's video is that a well-documented ring of star formation in Andromeda, thought to be a fleeting feature, has persisted over the past 400 million to 500 million years. Star formation occurs in regions that have a supply of molecular gas; once that gas is depleted, star birth stops, Lewis notes. The longevity of the ring-like feature, dubbed the 10-kiloparsec ring, indicates either that the region had an unusually large supply of such gas to begin with, or that some mechanism is continually funnelling fresh gas into the ring, she says. Either way, “It’s a puzzle,” says Dalcanton.

[bystander]

There is an article here in Nature ...

Galaxy seen shuddering from ancient collision
Nature | Ron Cowen | 2015 Jan 05

The Nature and Origin of Substructure in the Outskirts of M31 – II. Detailed Star Formation Histories - Edouard J. Bernard et al

• Monthly Notices of the RAS 446(3) 2789 (2015 Jan 21) DOI: 10.1093/mnras/stu2309
  arXiv.org > astro-ph > arXiv:1406.2247 > 09 Jun 2014 (v1), 30 Oct 2014 (v2)

[starsurfer]

That makes me a little sad.
Are you training to be a professional astronomer? You have the potential and intelligence to be one!

Not really, just taking an online course a little too seriously. I tend to forget to eat when busy trying to figure something out. It's a very nerdy accidental diet.

I really like your dedication! This is something I'm also slightfly familiar with although I do remember ordering a pizza at 3am once. I suppose the universe is worth it!

[starsurfer]

NGC 772
http://www.imagingdeepsky.com/Galaxies/ ... GC772.html
Copyright: Ken Crawford

This peculiar interacting galaxy pair (along with the elliptical galaxy NGC 770) is also known as Arp 78.

[bystander]

Where Did All The Stars Go?
ESO Photo Release | 2015 Jan 07

[i]The dark nebula LDN 483 - [b]Credit: ESO[/b][/i]

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Dark cloud obscures hundreds of background stars

Some of the stars appear to be missing in this intriguing new ESO image. But the black gap in this glitteringly beautiful starfield is not really a gap, but rather a region of space clogged with gas and dust. This dark cloud is called LDN 483 — for Lynds Dark Nebula 483. Such clouds are the birthplaces of future stars. The Wide Field Imager, an instrument mounted on the MPG/ESO 2.2-metre telescope at ESO's La Silla Observatory in Chile, captured this image of LDN 483 and its surroundings.

LDN 483 is located about 700 light-years away in the constellation of Serpens (The Serpent). The cloud contains enough dusty material to completely block the visible light from background stars. Particularly dense molecular clouds, like LDN 483, qualify as dark nebulae because of this obscuring property. The starless nature of LDN 483 and its ilk would suggest that they are sites where stars cannot take root and grow. But in fact the opposite is true: dark nebulae offer the most fertile environments for eventual star formation.

Astronomers studying star formation in LDN 483 have discovered some of the youngest observable kinds of baby stars buried in LDN 483’s shrouded interior. These gestating stars can be thought of as still being in the womb, having not yet been born as complete, albeit immature, stars. ...

[starsurfer]

NGC 488
http://www.caelumobservatory.com/gallery/n488.shtml
Copyright: Adam Block
Acknowledgement: R. Jay GaBany

[starsurfer]

NGC 6914
http://www.robgendlerastropics.com/NGC6914NM.html
Copyright: Robert Gendler

[starsurfer]

NGC 2014 and NGC 2035
http://www.chart32.de/index.php/component/k2/item/63
Copyright: CHART32
Processing: Johannes Schedler

NGC 2014 is an open cluster associated with the filamentary emission nebula N57 near the left. NGC 2035 refers to the brightest part of the emission nebula near the right, the whole complex is also collectively known as N59. This also includes the supernova remnant DEM L241, which is the filamentary part near the right of it. Interestingly, N59 also includes a Wolf Rayet star but it doesn't have an associated Wolf Rayet bubble. However the turquoise bubble NGC 2020 to the right of NGC 2014 is the brightest example of a few Wolf Rayet nebulae found in the LMC. The most prominent cluster below NGC 2014 is NGC 2011.