APOD: Thor's Helmet Emission Nebula (2017 Nov 01)

[APOD Robot]

Thor's Helmet Emission Nebula

Explanation: This helmet-shaped cosmic cloud with wing-like appendages is popularly called Thor's Helmet. Heroically sized even for a Norse god, Thor's Helmet spans about 30 light-years across. In fact, the helmet is more like an interstellar bubble, blown as a fast wind -- from the bright star near the center of the bubble's blue-hued region -- sweeps through a surrounding molecular cloud. This star, a Wolf-Rayet star, is a massive and extremely hot giant star thought to be in a brief, pre-supernova stage of evolution. Cataloged as NGC 2359, the emission nebula is located about 12,000 light-years away toward the constellation of the Big Dog (Canis Major). The sharp image, made using broadband and narrowband filters, captures striking details of the nebula's filamentary gas and dust structures. The blue color originates from strong emission from oxygen atoms in the nebula.

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[Boomer12k]

WOW... that is a stunning image of it...

I finally got my replacement scope from Meade, a 8" LX 90... seems to be a fine scope. see my Moon pics from tonight in the cafe...

Wonderful WORK!!!

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[neufer]

I finally got my replacement scope from Meade, a 8" LX 90... seems to be a fine scope.

<<In Norse mythology, the Poetic Mead or Mead of Poetry (Old Norse skáldskapar mjaðar), also known as Mead of Suttungr (Suttungmjaðar), is a mythical beverage that whoever "drinks becomes a skald or scholar" to recite any information and solve any question. The drink is a vivid metaphor for poetic inspiration, often associated with Odin the god of 'possession' via berserker rage or poetic inspiration.

After the Æsir-Vanir War, the gods sealed the truce they had just concluded by spitting in a vat. To keep a symbol of this truce, they created from their spittle a man named Kvasir. He was so wise that there were no questions he could not answer. He travelled around the world to give knowledge to mankind. One day, he visited the dwarves Fjalar and Galar. They killed him and poured his blood into two vats and a pot called Boðn, Són and Óðrerir. They mixed his blood with honey, thus creating a mead which made anybody who drank it a "poet or scholar" ("skáld eða frœðamaðr"). The dwarves explained to the gods that Kvasir had suffocated in intelligence.>>

[ta152h0]

The Mercury dime wears this helmet

[Visual_Astronomer]

WOW... that is a stunning image of it...

I finally got my replacement scope from Meade, a 8" LX 90... seems to be a fine scope. see my Moon pics from tonight in the cafe...
:---[===] *

This is an interesting visual target, especially with a narrow-band filter. Check it out with your new scope. (After the Moon leaves the sky.)

[MarkBour]

How fortunate it is that astrophysics works out this way. If you have a cloud of mostly hydrogen, it might collapse under the force of gravity. But it doesn't just compact. Instead, it starts a vigorous reaction, that makes a whole lot of materials that it then sends back out to waft on the interstellar winds. And lots of alchemy in it produces elements that weren't present in the initial cloud. And so we have Thor's Helmet.

Perhaps I'm a bit of a simpleton that I find this marvelous. When I was young, I thought it would be a bad idea to get near the Sun because it was very massive, and the gravity would pull you in to burn up and die. I still realize that it's a bad idea and you will die, but I now see that it's not just a one-way process, it's a marvelous sort of "respiration". And, as many have pointed out many times before in this forum, without stars and this process, the Earth would not be here and we would not be here.

[Boomer12k]

I finally got my replacement scope from Meade, a 8" LX 90... seems to be a fine scope.

<<In Norse mythology, the Poetic Mead or Mead of Poetry (Old Norse skáldskapar mjaðar), also known as Mead of Suttungr (Suttungmjaðar), is a mythical beverage that whoever "drinks becomes a skald or scholar" to recite any information and solve any question. The drink is a vivid metaphor for poetic inspiration, often associated with Odin the god of 'possession' via berserker rage or poetic inspiration.

After the Æsir-Vanir War, the gods sealed the truce they had just concluded by spitting in a vat. To keep a symbol of this truce, they created from their spittle a man named Kvasir. He was so wise that there were no questions he could not answer. He travelled around the world to give knowledge to mankind. One day, he visited the dwarves Fjalar and Galar. They killed him and poured his blood into two vats and a pot called Boðn, Són and Óðrerir. They mixed his blood with honey, thus creating a mead which made anybody who drank it a "poet or scholar" ("skáld eða frœðamaðr"). The dwarves explained to the gods that Kvasir had suffocated in intelligence.>>

Yes, Mead in the Longhouse... "ah, dose ver da dayz..."

Never trust a lying, murdering, little dwarf....their MEAN....
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[Boomer12k]

WOW... that is a stunning image of it...

I finally got my replacement scope from Meade, a 8" LX 90... seems to be a fine scope. see my Moon pics from tonight in the cafe...
:---[===] *

This is an interesting visual target, especially with a narrow-band filter. Check it out with your new scope. (After the Moon leaves the sky.)

"After the Moon Leaves the sky", and the RAIN STOPS....LOL... we have about 2 weeks to look forward to... October wasn't so bad...I got lucky this year.

:---[===] *