Found images: 2017 February

bystander · Post by **bystander** » Wed Feb 01, 2017 5:50 am

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!

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starsurfer · Post by **starsurfer** » Wed Feb 01, 2017 10:16 am

B18 and DG 37-9
http://afesan.es/Deepspace/slides/Barna ... 20END.html
Copyright: Antonio Sánchez

starsurfer · Post by **starsurfer** » Thu Feb 02, 2017 1:12 pm

RCW 103
http://members.pcug.org.au/~stevec/rcw1 ... 3_RC14.htm
Copyright: Steve Crouch

starsurfer · Post by **starsurfer** » Fri Feb 03, 2017 1:54 pm

Sagittarius Trio
http://www.astrobin.com/177400/
Copyright: John Gleason

starsurfer · Post by **starsurfer** » Fri Feb 03, 2017 1:59 pm

NGC 1966
http://www.chart32.de/index.php/component/k2/item/168
Copyright: CHART32
Processing: Johannes Schedler

starsurfer · Post by **starsurfer** » Sun Feb 05, 2017 12:05 pm

Dark Horse Nebula
http://www.astro-austral.cl/imagenes/wi ... e/info.htm
Copyright: José Joaquín Pérez

starsurfer · Post by **starsurfer** » Mon Feb 06, 2017 12:19 pm

NGC 2282
http://www.caelumobservatory.com/gallery/n2282.shtml
Copyright: Adam Block/Mount Lemmon SkyCenter/University of Arizona

starsurfer · Post by **starsurfer** » Mon Feb 06, 2017 12:22 pm

Sh2-171
http://bf-astro.com/sh2-171/sh2-171.htm
Copyright: Bob Franke

bystander · Post by **bystander** » Mon Feb 06, 2017 4:19 pm

When Stars Explode (NGC 4981)
ESO Picture of the Week | 2017 Feb 06

[img3="Credit: ESO - Acknowledgement: Josh Barrington"]https://cdn.eso.org/images/screen/potw1706a.jpg[/img3][hr][/hr]
Over 75 million light-years away in the constellation of Virgo (The Virgin) lies NGC 4981 — a spiral galaxy with a rather explosive past.

NGC 4981 was discovered on 17 April 1784 by William Herschel, and subsequently documented in John Dreyer’s New General Catalogue. Over a century later, on 23 April 1968, the galaxy once again made it into the records when a Type la supernova — a stellar explosion in a binary star system — occurred within its confines: SN 1968I. SN 1968I, however, was not to be the galaxy’s only supernova. Decades later, the core collapse of a massive star led to supernova SN 2007c.

This spectacular shot of NGC 4981 — not showing any of the supernovae explosions; the bright star visible in the image is a foreground star — was captured by FORS, the visible and near-UV FOcal Reducer and low dispersion Spectrograph for ESO’s Very Large Telescope (VLT). FORS is the Swiss Army knife of ESO’s instruments — it is able to study many different astronomical objects in many different ways, and is responsible for some of the most iconic photos ever captured with the VLT (see eso9948f and eso0202a). ...

bystander · Post by **bystander** » Mon Feb 06, 2017 4:27 pm

A Spiral in Andromeda (NGC 7640)
ESA Hubble Picture of the Week | 2017 Feb 06

[img3="Credit: ESA/Hubble, NASA"]https://cdn.spacetelescope.org/archives ... w1706a.jpg[/img3][hr][/hr]
Not to be confused with our neighbouring Andromeda Galaxy, the Andromeda constellation is one of the 88 modern constellations. More importantly for this image, it is home to the pictured NGC 7640.

Many different classifications are used to identify galaxies by shape and structure — NGC 7640 is a barred spiral type. These are recognisable by their spiral arms, which fan out not from a circular core, but from an elongated bar cutting through the galaxy’s centre. Our home galaxy, the Milky Way, is also a barred spiral galaxy. NGC 7640 might not look much like a spiral in this image, but this is due to the orientation of the galaxy with respect to Earth — or to Hubble, which acted as photographer in this case! We often do not see galaxies face on, which can make features such as spiral arms less obvious.

There is evidence that NGC 7640 has experienced some kind of interaction in its past. Galaxies contain vast amounts of mass, and therefore affect one another via gravity. Sometimes these interactions can be mild, and sometimes hugely dramatic, with two or more colliding and merging into a new, bigger galaxy. Understanding the history of a galaxy, and what interactions it has experienced, helps astronomers to improve their understanding of how galaxies — and the stars within them — form.

Ann · Post by **Ann** » Thu Feb 09, 2017 2:25 pm

Swedish Astronomy Picture of the Year

: Click to view full size image

The Moon rises over mountaintops.
Photo: Göran Strand.

Ann · Post by **Ann** » Thu Feb 09, 2017 2:31 pm

The lighthouse and the Milky Way

: Click to view full size image

The picture was taken in August, 2016. Photo: Jörgen Tannerstedt

starsurfer · Post by **starsurfer** » Thu Feb 09, 2017 3:26 pm

NGC 6914
http://astrophotography.aa6g.org/Astrop ... f8300.html
Copyright: Chuck Vaughn

starsurfer · Post by **starsurfer** » Thu Feb 09, 2017 3:29 pm

M78, LDN 1622 and Barnard's Loop
http://www.astrosurf.com/ilizaso/orriak ... Q_U16m.htm
Copyright: Iñaki Lizaso

starsurfer · Post by **starsurfer** » Fri Feb 10, 2017 6:31 pm

vdB152
https://ollypenrice.smugmug.com/Other/B ... Vtk6nfM/X3
Copyright: Olly Penrice

starsurfer · Post by **starsurfer** » Sun Feb 12, 2017 5:04 pm

Abell 72
http://www.capella-observatory.com/Imag ... bell72.htm
Copyright: Stefan Binnewies, Stefan Heutz, Bernd Koch and Josef Pöpsel

starsurfer · Post by **starsurfer** » Sun Feb 12, 2017 5:07 pm

IC 444
http://www.astrobin.com/282082/B/
Copyright: Tero Turunen

bystander · Post by **bystander** » Mon Feb 13, 2017 7:00 pm

False Dawn
ESO Picture of the Week | 2017 Feb 13

[img3="Credit: ESO/Petr Horálek"]https://cdn.eso.org/images/screen/potw1707a.jpg[/img3][hr][/hr]
The sky is full of optical phenomena that can make it tricky to get a clear view of the cosmos. These present a frustrating challenge to astronomers, but for astrophotographers they can provide a real feast for the eyes! This stunning image shows the centre of the Milky Way crossed by the eerie glow of zodiacal light, and is full of dust-induced features that obstruct scientific observations — but they look so beautiful it’s difficult to mind too much.

In this image, the centre of the Milky Way appears to be full of inky black gas. In fact, the dark swirling patches are simply the absence of visible light, because huge clouds of dust are obscuring the light from more distant stars. However, just as dust can give the illusion of darkness, it can also give the illusion of light. This is the case with zodiacal light, a fuzzy band of light that we see projected along the constellations of the zodiac. It is caused when sunlight is scattered by the disc of cosmic dust surrounding the inner Solar System. Particularly observant viewers may notice intricate structures within the band of light — notable here is the phenomenon of Gegenschein, the faint elliptical glow at the antisolar point towards the left of the frame. To the right, the bright column of zodiacal light, or “false dawn”, swells up from the horizon.

This image was captured over the course of a night and is the result of sophisticated imaging by ESO Photo Ambassador Petr Horálek, who sought to capture the structure of zodiacal light in a ground-based image like never before. It was taken at ESO’s La Silla Observatory in Chile. Petr Horálek won the title of "Czech Astrophotography of the Month" in January 2017 for his photo. The title is offered by the Czech Astronomical Society and the Czech Astronomical Institute.

bystander · Post by **bystander** » Mon Feb 13, 2017 7:08 pm

Sidekick or Star of the Show?
ESA Hubble Picture of the Week | 2017 Feb 13

[img3=""]https://cdn.spacetelescope.org/archives ... w1707a.jpg[/img3][hr][/hr]
This image was captured by the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope’s Advanced Camera for Surveys (ACS), a highly efficient wide-field camera covering the optical and near-infrared parts of the spectrum. While this lovely image contains hundreds of distant stars and galaxies, one vital thing is missing — the object Hubble was actually studying at the time!

This is not because the target has disappeared. The ACS actually uses two detectors: the first captures the object being studied — in this case an open star cluster known as NGC 299 — while the other detector images the patch of space just ‘beneath’ it. This is what can be seen here.

Technically, this picture is merely a sidekick of the actual object of interest — but space is bursting with activity, and this field of bright celestial bodies offers plenty of interest on its own. It may initially seem to show just stars, but a closer look reveals many of these tiny objects to be galaxies. The spiral galaxies have arms curving out from a bright centre. The fuzzier, less clearly shaped galaxies might be ellipticals. Some of these galaxies contain millions and millions of stars, but are so distant that all of their starry residents are contained within just a small pinprick of light that appears to be the same size as a single star!

The bright blue dots are very hot stars, sometimes distorted into crosses by the struts supporting Hubble’s secondary mirror. The redder dots are cooler stars, possibly in the red giant phase when a dying star cools and expands.