Found images: 2016 October

[Sandgirl]

---

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!

<< Previously

[starsurfer]

NGC 346
http://www.chart32.de/index.php/component/k2/item/180
Copyright: CHART32
Processing: Johannes Schedler

[starsurfer]

BFS 32
http://afesan.es/Deepspace/slides/BSF32 ... us%29.html
Copyright: Antonio Sánchez

[starsurfer]

Longmore 8 and NGC 5121
http://members.pcug.org.au/~stevec/ESO3 ... 3_RC14.htm
Copyright: Steve Crouch

[bystander]

Spirals with a Tale to Tell
ESO Picture of the Week | 2016 Oct 03

[img3="Credit: B. Saxton (NRAO/AUI/NSF); ALMA (ESO/NAOJ/NRAO)"]https://cdn.eso.org/images/screen/potw1640a.jpg[/img3][hr][/hr]

This beautiful image, captured with the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) features a protoplanetary disc surrounding the young star Elias 2-27, some 450 light years away. ALMA has discovered and observed plenty of protoplanetary discs, but this disc is special as it shows two distinct spiral arms, almost like a tiny version of a spiral galaxy.

Previously, astronomers noted compelling spiral features on the surfaces of protoplanetary discs, but it was unknown if these same spiral patterns also emerged deep within the disc where planet formation takes place. ALMA, for the first time, was able to peer deep into the mid-plane of a disk and discovered the clear signature of spiral density waves.

Nearest to the star, ALMA found a flat disc of dust, which extends to what would approximately be the orbit of Neptune in our own Solar System. Beyond that point, in the region analogous to our Kuiper Belt, ALMA detected a narrow band with significantly less dust, which may be an indication for planet in formation. Springing from the outer edge of this gap are the two sweeping spiral arms that extend more than 10 billion kilometers away from their host star. The discovery of spiral waves at these extreme distances may have implications on the theory of planet formation.

http://asterisk.apod.com/viewtopic.php?t=36423

[bystander]

The Centre of NGC 247
ESA Hubble Picture of the Week | 2016 Oct 03

[c][attachment=0]potw1640a[1].jpg[/attachment][/b][/c][hr][/hr]

This Hubble image shows the central region of a spiral galaxy known as NGC 247. NGC 247 is a relatively small spiral galaxy in the southern constellation of Cetus (The Whale). Lying at a distance of around 11 million light-years from us, it forms part of the Sculptor Group, a loose collection of galaxies that also contains the more famous NGC 253 (otherwise known as the Sculptor Galaxy).

NGC 247’s nucleus is visible here as a bright, whitish patch, surrounded by a mixture of stars, gas and dust. The dust forms dark patches and filaments that are silhouetted against the background of stars, while the gas has formed into bright knots known as H II regions, mostly scattered throughout the galaxy’s arms and outer areas.

This galaxy displays one particularly unusual and mysterious feature — it is not visible in this image, but can be seen clearly in wider views of the galaxy, such as this picture from ESO’s MPG/ESO 2.2-metre telescope. The northern part of NGC 247’s disc hosts an apparent void, a gap in the usual swarm of stars and H II regions that spans almost a third of the galaxy’s total length.

There are stars within this void, but they are quite different from those around it. They are significantly older, and as a result much fainter and redder. This indicates that the star formation taking place across most of the galaxy’s disc has somehow been arrested in the void region, and has not taken place for around one billion years. Although astronomers are still unsure how the void formed, recent studies suggest it might have been caused by gravitational interactions with part of another galaxy.

[Ann]

The Centre of NGC 247
ESA Hubble Picture of the Week | 2016 Oct 03

Click to view full size image

The center of NGC 247. ESA/Hubble picture of the week.

Very interesting! I was going to post a version of this picture myself, but I couldn't find one that was small enough. But here is one!

spacetelescope.org wrote:

This galaxy displays one particularly unusual and mysterious feature — it is not visible in this image, but can be seen clearly in wider views of the galaxy, such as this picture from ESO’s MPG/ESO 2.2-metre telescope. The northern part of NGC 247’s disc hosts an apparent void, a gap in the usual swarm of stars and H II regions that spans almost a third of the galaxy’s total length.

There are stars within this void, but they are quite different from those around it. They are significantly older, and as a result much fainter and redder. This indicates that the star formation taking place across most of the galaxy’s disc has somehow been arrested in the void region, and has not taken place for around one billion years. Although astronomers are still unsure how the void formed, recent studies suggest it might have been caused by gravitational interactions with part of another galaxy.

Click to view full size image

The center of galaxy M51. Photo: Bill Snyder.

I don't want to question the claim that the void in the disk of NGC 247 is somewhat mysterious, but I do want to point out that the old and the young stars in star forming disk galaxies are typically differently distributed. Take a look at Bill Snyder's portrait of the inner parts of galaxy M51. The old red (make that yellow) stars are found in the central bulge and between the obvious spiral arms, while the young blue stars are found in the spiral arms. As for NGC 247, I can't help wondering if we are just seeing a star forming blue arm that for some reason is "raised above" or just "stretched out from" the yellower disk. Of course, such an effect could be caused by the interaction with another galaxy.

The color balance of the ESA picture is strangely blue. We are seeing the inner bulge of NGC 247, and inner bulges are almost always yellowish in multi-generation galaxies. More telling is the fact that it is somewhat hard to pick out the red giants that are sure to exist in and near (many of) the blue star clusters and stellar associations in NGC 247.

The color balance of the ESO image of NGC 247 at right seems more natural to me. Here the inner bulge is indeed slightly yellowish.

Ann

[starsurfer]

NGC 6744
http://www.astro-austral.cl/imagenes/ga ... 4/info.htm
Copyright: José Joaquín Pérez

[starsurfer]

Pinwheel Galaxy (M101)
http://www.martinpughastrophotography.id.au
Copyright: Martin Pugh

[starsurfer]

NGC 1398
http://www.caelumobservatory.com/gallery/n1398.shtml
Copyright: Adam Block/Mount Lemmon SkyCenter/University of Arizona

[starsurfer]

NGC 80 group
http://www.astrofotos.at/index.php?view ... Itemid=134
Copyright: Robert Pölzl

[Ann]

Thanks for posting all those great galaxy images, starsurfer!

Ann

[Ann]

This isn't a found image, but a found video. It shows a simulation of how giant young star cluster R136 in the Large Magellanic Cloud could have formed. In particular, it shows how two clusters collide to form the present-day R136.

Click to play embedded YouTube video.

Ann

[starsurfer]

NGC 7662
http://www.capella-observatory.com/Imag ... GC7662.htm
Copyright: Volker Wendel, Josef Pöpsel and Stefan Binnewies

[starsurfer]

M17
http://astrophotography.aa6g.org/Astrop ... f8300.html
Copyright: Chuck Vaughn

[starsurfer]

IC 4603
http://bf-astro.com/ic4603/ic4603.htm
Copyright: Bob Franke

[starsurfer]

NGC 7497
http://www.astrosurf.com/ilizaso/orriak ... Q_U16m.htm
Copyright: Iñaki Lizaso

[starsurfer]

Jellyfish Nebula (IC 443)
http://www.alessandrofalesiedi.it/deep- ... sh-nebula/
Copyright: Alessandro Falesiedi

[starsurfer]

NGC 654, vdB6 and LDN 1343-4
http://www.astrobin.com/219139/B/
Copyright: Tero Turunen

vdB6 is the small reflection nebula near the open cluster NGC 654.

[starsurfer]

Sh2-94
http://outters.fr/wp/sh2-94-hoo/
Copyright: Nicolas Outters

http://outters.fr/wp/sh2-94-sho/

This is a small part of the large supernova remnant G65.3+5.7.

[bystander]

Chandra Archive Collection: Discovering the Treasures in Chandra's Archives
NASA | MSFC | SAO | Chandra X-ray Observatory | 2016 Oct 14

Each year, NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory helps celebrate American Archive Month by releasing a collection of images using X-ray data in its archive.

The Chandra Data Archive is a sophisticated digital system that ultimately contains all of the data obtained by the telescope since its launch into space in 1999. Chandra's archive is a resource that makes these data available to the scientific community and the general public for years after they were originally obtained.

Each of these six new images also includes data from telescopes covering other parts of the electromagnetic spectrum, such as visible and infrared light. This collection of images represents just a small fraction of the treasures that reside in Chandra's unique X-ray archive.

---

X-ray: NASA/CXC/SAO/Sejong Univ./Hur et al;
Optical: NASA/STScI;

Westerlund 2: A cluster of young stars - about one to two million years old - located about 20,000 light years from Earth. Data in visible light from the Hubble Space Telescope (green and blue) reveal thick clouds where the stars are forming. High-energy radiation in the form of X-rays, however, can penetrate this cosmic haze, and are detected by Chandra (purple).

---

X-ray: NASA/CXC/Univ. of Bristol/M.Hardcastle et al;
Optical: NASA/STScI;

3C31: X-rays from the radio galaxy 3C31 (blue), located 240 million light years from Earth, allow astronomers to probe the density, temperature, and pressure of this galaxy, long known to be a powerful emitter of radio waves. The Chandra data also reveal a jet blasting away from one side of the central galaxy, which also is known as NGC 383. Here, the Chandra X-ray image has been combined with Hubble's visible light data (yellow).

---

X-ray: NASA/CXC/George Washington Univ./N.Klingler et al;
Optical: DSS; Radio: CSIRO/ATNF/ATCA;

PSR J1509-5850: Pulsars were first discovered in 1967 and today astronomers know of over a thousand such objects. The pulsar, PSR J1509-5850, located about 12,000 light years from Earth and appearing as the bright white spot in the center of this image, has generated a long tail of X-ray emission trailing behind it, as seen in the lower part of the image. This pulsar has also generated an outflow of particles in approximately the opposite direction. In this image, X-rays detected by Chandra (blue) and radio emission (pink) have been overlaid on a visible light image from the Digitized Sky Survey of the field of view.

---

X-ray: NASA/CXC/Morehead State Univ/T.Pannuti et al;
Radio: Molonglo Obs. Synthesis Tel.;
Infrared: NASA/JPL-Caltech

CTB37A: Astronomers estimate that a supernova explosion should occur about every 50 years on average in the Milky Way galaxy. The object known as CTB 37A is a supernova remnant located in our Galaxy about 20,000 light years from Earth. This image shows that the debris field glowing in X-rays (blue) and radio waves (pink) may be expanding into a cooler cloud of gas and dust seen in infrared light (orange).

---

X-ray: NASA/CXC/Univ. of Alabama/S.Dasadia et al,
Radio: NSF/NRAO/VLA, Optical: SDSS

Abell 665: Merging galaxy clusters can generate enormous shock waves, similar to cold fronts in weather on Earth. This system, known as Abell 665, has an extremely powerful shockwave, second only to the famous Bullet Cluster. Here, X-rays from Chandra (blue) show hot gas in the cluster. The bow wave shape of the shock is shown by the large white region near the center of the image. The Chandra image has been added to radio emission (purple) and visible light data from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey showing galaxies and stars (white).

---

X-ray: NASA/CXC/SAO/R. van Weeren et al;
Radio: NCRA/TIFR/GMRT;
Optical: NAOJ/Subaru

RX J0603.3+4214 (Toothbrush Cluster): The phenomenon of pareidolia is when people see familiar shapes in images. This galaxy cluster has invoked the nickname of the "Toothbrush Cluster" because of its resemblance to the dental tool. In fact, the stem of the brush is due to radio waves (green) while the diffuse emission where the toothpaste would go is produced by X-rays observed by Chandra (purple). Visible light data from the Subaru telescope show galaxies and stars (white) and a map from gravitational lensing (blue) shows the concentration of the mass, which is mostly (about 80%) dark matter.

[starsurfer]

NGC 3576 and NGC 3603
http://www.atacama-photographic-observatory.com
Copyright: Thierry Demange, Richard Galli and Thomas Petit

NGC 3576 is the nebula on the right and NGC 3603 is the nebula on the left.

[starsurfer]

Barnard's E (B142-3)
http://www.astropilar.com.ar/nebulosas/B142_1.html
Copyright: Ezequiel Bellocchio

[bystander]

The Toucan and the Cluster (NGC 299)
ESA Hubble Picture of the Week | 2016 Oct 17

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

---

[hr][/hr]

It may be famous for hosting spectacular sights such as the Tucana Dwarf Galaxy and 47 Tucanae (heic1510), the second brightest globular cluster in the night sky, but the southern constellation of Tucana (The Toucan) also possesses a variety of unsung cosmic beauties.

One such beauty is NGC 299, an open star cluster located within the Small Magellanic Cloud just under 200 000 light-years away. Open clusters such as this are collections of stars weakly bound by the shackles of gravity, all of which formed from the same massive molecular cloud of gas and dust. Because of this, all the stars have the same age and composition, but vary in their mass because they formed at different positions within the cloud.

This unique property not only ensures a spectacular sight when viewed through a sophisticated instrument attached to a telescope such as Hubble’s Advanced Camera for Surveys, but gives astronomers a cosmic laboratory in which to study the formation and evolution of stars — a process that is thought to depend strongly on a star’s mass.

[starsurfer]

The Toucan and the Cluster (NGC 299)
ESA Hubble Picture of the Week | 2016 Oct 17

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

---

[hr][/hr]

It may be famous for hosting spectacular sights such as the Tucana Dwarf Galaxy and 47 Tucanae (heic1510), the second brightest globular cluster in the night sky, but the southern constellation of Tucana (The Toucan) also possesses a variety of unsung cosmic beauties.

One such beauty is NGC 299, an open star cluster located within the Small Magellanic Cloud just under 200 000 light-years away. Open clusters such as this are collections of stars weakly bound by the shackles of gravity, all of which formed from the same massive molecular cloud of gas and dust. Because of this, all the stars have the same age and composition, but vary in their mass because they formed at different positions within the cloud.

This unique property not only ensures a spectacular sight when viewed through a sophisticated instrument attached to a telescope such as Hubble’s Advanced Camera for Surveys, but gives astronomers a cosmic laboratory in which to study the formation and evolution of stars — a process that is thought to depend strongly on a star’s mass.

Wow sparkly! A Hubble view of a cluster in another galaxy looks like the view of a cluster in our galaxy with a regular telescope.