Found Images: 2018 May

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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!

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NGC 4410
https://www.hansonastronomy.com/ngc-4410-galaxy-group
Copyright: Mark Hanson

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Sh2-68
http://www.caelumobservatory.com/gallery/sh2_68.shtml
Copyright: Adam Block/Mount Lemmon SkyCenter/University of Arizona

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SMC
https://www.martinpughastrophotography. ... n-the-smc/
Copyright: Martin Pugh

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Lagoon Nebula (M8)
http://astrophotography.aa6g.org/Astrop ... f8300.html
Copyright: Chuck Vaughn

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IC 2631
https://www.eso.org/public/images/eso1605a/
Copyright: ESO

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IC 1396
http://www.astrosurf.com/ilizaso/orriak ... Q_U16m.htm
Copyright: Iñaki Lizaso

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IC 1795
https://www.astrobin.com/328465/B/
Copyright: Tero Turunen

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Nova over Supernova
ESO Picture of the Week | 2018 May 07

Image Credit: ESO/Petr Horálek

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In an astronomically unlikely coincidence, a star exploded as a nova in the sky over the Supernova Planetarium & Visitor Centre less than a week after its inauguration. An image of the dwarf nova V392 Persei was captured by ESO photo ambassador Petr Horálek on 2 May 2018. It shows a wide angle view of the evening sky over the ESO Supernova, looking west-northwest.

The position of the nova over the ESO Supernova is marked on the wide view with an insert showing a zoomed view of the area taken with same camera but using a different lens. In this image the nova is easily identifiable due to its typical orange colour.

Dwarf novae occur as a result of a white dwarf star accreting material from its lower mass, binary companion. The material from the disc is compressed as it is transferred to the surface of the white dwarf where it is then heated and ignites into an very powerful (and bright) explosion. The case of nova V392 Persei is, actually, a much rarer and more brilliant event. There has only been one occurrence in the history of dwarf novae observations where a star has transitioned to a fully fledged and much brighter nova. This was V1213 Centauri in 2009 and now we have the second such event, V392 Persei.

The image is symbolic as the ESO Supernova building is designed to look like a double star system, very similar to the one involving dwarf nova V392 Persei, which would eventually result in one of the stars exploding as a supernova in a brilliant flash of light — hence the centre’s name.

On the Progenitor System of V392 Persei - M. J. Darnley, S. Starrfield

• arXiv.org > astro-ph > arXiv:1805.00994 > 02 May 2018

[bystander]

From Toddlers to Babies
ESA Hubble Picture of the Week | 2018 May 07

Image Credit: ESA/Hubble & NASA, RELICS

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In the darkness of the distant Universe, galaxies resemble glowing fireflies, flickering candles, charred embers floating up from a bonfire, light bulbs softly shining. This Picture of the Week, captured by the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope, shows a massive group of galaxies bound together by gravity: a cluster named RXC J0032.1+1808.

This image was taken by Hubble’s Advanced Camera for Surveys (ACS) and Wide-Field Camera 3 (WFC3) as part of an observing programme called RELICS (Reionization Lensing Cluster Survey). RELICS imaged 41 massive galaxy clusters with the aim of finding the brightest distant galaxies for the forthcoming NASA/ESA/CSA James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) to study.

Expected to launch in 2018, the JWST is designed to see in infrared wavelengths, which is exceedingly useful for observing distant objects. As a result of the expansion of the Universe, very distant objects are highly redshifted (their light is shifted towards the redder end of the spectrum) and so infrared telescopes are needed to study them. While Hubble currently has the ability to peer billions of years into the past to see “toddler” galaxies, the JWST will have the capability to study “baby” galaxies, the first galaxies that formed in the Universe.

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Vela Supernova Remnant
http://www.pbase.com/tango33/image/159139277
Copyright: Kfir Simon

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NGC 3324
http://www.cielaustral.com/galerie/photo80.htm
Copyright: Ciel Austral

Click to view full size image 1 or image 2

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Vela X-1
https://www.rolfolsenastrophotography.c ... /i-J7swN6J
Copyright: Rolf Olsen

Click to view full size image

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Omega Centauri (NGC 5139)
https://www.astrobin.com/291154/0/
Copyright: Alexander Voigt

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IC 5250
http://www.chart32.de/index.php/component/k2/item/191
Copyright: CHART32
Processing: Volker Wendel

Click to view full size image

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Running Chicken Nebula (IC 2944)
http://www.pbase.com/strongmanmike2002/image/167273127
Copyright: Michael Sidonio

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Eta Carinae Nebula (NGC 3372) with Nova ASASSN-18fv
http://www.atacama-photographic-observa ... php?id=106
Copyright: Thierry Demange, Richard Galli and Thomas Petit

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Trapped by Lasers
ESO Picture of the Week | 2018 May 14

Credit: ESO/Gerhard Hüdepohl (atacamaphoto.com)

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Twinkling stars are far more desirable to poets and romantics than to astronomers. Even in the near-pristine seeing conditions over Chile, home to ESO’s fleet of world-class telescopes, turbulence in Earth’s atmosphere causes stars to twinkle, blurring our view of the night sky.

These four laser beams are specially designed to combat this turbulence. The intense orange beams dominating this image originate from the 4 Laser Guide Star Facility, a state-of-the-art component of the Adaptive Optics Facility of ESO’s Very Large Telescope (VLT). Each beam is some 4000 times more powerful than a standard laser pointer! Each creates an artificial guide star by exciting sodium atoms high in the Earth’s upper atmosphere and causing them to glow.

Creating artificial guide stars allows astronomers to measure and correct for atmospheric distortion, by adjusting and calibrating the settings of their observing equipment to be as accurate as possible for that particular area of sky. This gives the VLT a crystal-clear view of the cosmos, so it can capture the wonders of the Universe in stunning detail.

This amazing capture was taken using a drone flown over the VLT by ESO Photo Ambassador Gerhard Hüdepohl.

[bystander]

A Spiral Disguised
ESA Hubble Picture of the Week | 2018 May 14

Credit: ESA/Hubble & NASA

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Resembling a wizard’s staff set aglow, NGC 1032 cleaves the quiet darkness of space in two in this image from the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope.

NGC 1032 is located about a hundred million light years away in the constellation Cetus (The Sea Monster). Although beautiful, this image perhaps does not do justice to the galaxy’s true aesthetic appeal: NGC 1032 is actually a spectacular spiral galaxy, but from Earth, the galaxy’s vast disc of gas, dust and stars is seen nearly edge-on.

A handful of other galaxies can be seen lurking in the background, scattered around the narrow stripe of NGC 1032. Many are oriented face-on or at tilted angles, showing off their glamorous spiral arms and bright cores. Such orientations provide a wealth of detail about the arms and their nuclei, but fully understanding a galaxy’s three-dimensional structure also requires an edge-on view. This gives astronomers an overall idea of how stars are distributed throughout the galaxy and allows them to measure the “height” of the disc and the bright star-studded core.

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M101
http://www.cxielo.ch/gallery/f/m101
Copyright: Martin Rusterholz

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M81 and M82
https://www.flickr.com/photos/141763086 ... 237771544/
Copyright: Daniel McCauley

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IC 10
http://www.airglow.de/ic10.htm
Copyright: Rainer Sparenberg
Acknowledgement: Stefan Binnewies

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CTA 1
https://www.flickr.com/photos/dmal/39970413822/
Copyright: Daniele Malleo

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NGC 6210
http://www.capella-observatory.com/Imag ... GC6210.htm
Copyright: Josef Pöpsel and Stefan Binnewies

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M76
http://www.pbase.com/skybox/image/156309805
Copyright: Kevin Quin

http://www.pbase.com/skybox/image/156309808