APOD: Clouds of the Large Magellanic Cloud (2019 May 03)

[APOD Robot]

Clouds of the Large Magellanic Cloud

Explanation: The Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC) is an alluring sight in southern skies. But this deep and detailed telescopic view, over 10 months in the making, goes beyond what is visible to most circumnavigators of planet Earth. Spanning over 5 degrees or 10 full moons, the 4x4 panel mosaic was constructed from 3900 frames with a total of 1,060 hours of exposure time in both broadband and narrowband filters. The narrowband filters are designed to transmit only light emitted by sulfur, hydrogen, and oxygen atoms. Ionized by energetic starlight, the atoms emit their characteristic light as electrons are recaptured and the atoms transition to a lower energy state. As a result, in this image the LMC seems covered with its own clouds of ionized gas surrounding its massive, young stars. Sculpted by the strong stellar winds and ultraviolet radiation, the glowing clouds, dominated by emission from hydrogen, are known as H II (ionized hydrogen) regions. Itself composed of many overlapping H II regions, the Tarantula Nebula is the large star forming region at the left. The largest satellite of our Milky Way Galaxy, the LMC is about 15,000 light-years across and lies a mere 160,000 light-years away toward the constellation Dorado.

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[BDanielMayfield]

Looks like a well used painter's drop cloth.

[Nitpicker]

So long, so wide, so deep, so narrow. Magnificent.

[Boomer12k]

It is like LAVA LAMPS in the 60's...

The blobbiness, reminds me of the space scenes in Barbarella...

:---[===] *

[Boomer12k]

Great job on a HUGE project...

:---[===] *

[orin stepanek]

Reminds me of bubbles in water; just starting to boil! Or maybe bubbles rising in a mug of beer!
https://www.shutterstock.com/video/clip ... ly-rotates

[NCTom]

Absolutely awesome in effort and results!

[neufer]

Click to play embedded YouTube video.

While watching a science-fiction B movie, The Flaming Globes of Sigmund, Jerry falls asleep. He wakes in the middle of the night and scrawls a joke for his stand-up comedy act. The following day he is unable to read what he wrote down. [Later a] hospital television shows The Flaming Globes of Sigmund again, and Jerry remembers that what he wrote down was a line from the movie. As he realizes this, he notes "That's it! Flaming globes of Sigmund! Flaming globes of Sigmund! That's my note! That's what I thought was so funny? That's not funny. There's nothing funny about that."

[sillyworm 2]

So much Universe .Frustrating that the word mere equates to unobtainable.Being realistic has it's downsides.Beautiful APOD.

[felopaul]

Thank you everybody ! happy to see our picture this morning !

Team Cielaustral

[Chris Peterson]

So much Universe .Frustrating that the word mere equates to unobtainable.Being realistic has it's downsides.Beautiful APOD.

We may not ever be able to physically visit most of the Universe, but it's far from unobtainable. We have access to so much of the Universe, and that amount continues to increase.

[neufer]

So much Universe .Frustrating that the word mere equates to unobtainable.Being realistic has it's downsides.Beautiful APOD.

We may not ever be able to physically visit most of the Universe, but it's far from unobtainable.

We have access to so much of the Universe, and that amount continues to increase.

<<In models where dark energy is the cosmological constant, the universe will expand exponentially with time in the far future, coming closer and closer to a de Sitter spacetime. This will eventually lead to all evidence for the Big Bang disappearing, as the cosmic microwave background is redshifted to lower intensities and longer wavelengths. Eventually, its frequency will be low enough that it will be absorbed by the interstellar medium, and so be screened from any observer within the galaxy. This will occur when the universe is less than 50 times its current age, leading to the end of cosmology as we know it as the distant universe turns dark.>>

[Chris Peterson]

So much Universe .Frustrating that the word mere equates to unobtainable.Being realistic has it's downsides.Beautiful APOD.

We may not ever be able to physically visit most of the Universe, but it's far from unobtainable.

We have access to so much of the Universe, and that amount continues to increase.

<<In models where dark energy is the cosmological constant, the universe will expand exponentially with time in the far future, coming closer and closer to a de Sitter spacetime. This will eventually lead to all evidence for the Big Bang disappearing, as the cosmic microwave background is redshifted to lower intensities and longer wavelengths. Eventually, its frequency will be low enough that it will be absorbed by the interstellar medium, and so be screened from any observer within the galaxy. This will occur when the universe is less than 50 times its current age, leading to the end of cosmology as we know it as the distant universe turns dark.>>

That's only one possibility, of course. Not that it matters to humans, as our species will be long gone by then.

[Ann]

We may not ever be able to physically visit most of the Universe, but it's far from unobtainable.

We have access to so much of the Universe, and that amount continues to increase.

<<In models where dark energy is the cosmological constant, the universe will expand exponentially with time in the far future, coming closer and closer to a de Sitter spacetime. This will eventually lead to all evidence for the Big Bang disappearing, as the cosmic microwave background is redshifted to lower intensities and longer wavelengths. Eventually, its frequency will be low enough that it will be absorbed by the interstellar medium, and so be screened from any observer within the galaxy. This will occur when the universe is less than 50 times its current age, leading to the end of cosmology as we know it as the distant universe turns dark.>>

That's only one possibility, of course. Not that it matters to humans, as our species will be long gone by then.

I don't know about you, but I find that a really comforting thought. Possibly because there was a time when I was young, when I was terrified of the other possible fate of the Universe - that it would start collapsing on us, and fall down on our heads - and up on our feet, and sideways and all around onto our torsos. (Yes, I do suffer from a touch of claustrophobia.)

But whatever the ultimate end of the Universe, it won't happen for a long, long time. We live in the prime of the Universe, which is also a comforting (and maybe sobering) thought.

Ann

[Chris Peterson]

That's only one possibility, of course. Not that it matters to humans, as our species will be long gone by then.

I don't know about you, but I find that a really comforting thought.

So does Mother Nature, I'm sure!

[Ann]

That's only one possibility, of course. Not that it matters to humans, as our species will be long gone by then.

I don't know about you, but I find that a really comforting thought.

So does Mother Nature, I'm sure!

So Mother Nature and I agree. That's good.

Now that I've talked about the end of the Universe, I thought I would say a little something about yesterday's APOD (the one we are discussing in this thread, of course).

Click to view full size image

The Clouds of the Large Magellanic Cloud.
Team Ciel Austral -
J. C. Canonne, N. Outters, P. Bernhard, D. Chaplain, L. Bourgon

Click to view full size image

The Large Magellanic Cloud in probable RGB + Hα.
Photo: Wei-Hao Wang (IfA, U. Hawaii)

It is interesting to see how the nebulas are enhanced and the stars are suppressed in an OIII/Hα/SII image, like in picture at left. Note the dark orange, almost brownish color of the Magellanic bar in the OIII/Hα/SII image. The dark orange color would result mostly from low-level SII ionization, which is invisible in the RGB + Hα image.

The APOD from May 3, 2019, certainly gives us a new way of looking at our nearest easily visible galactic neighbour.

Ann

[starsurfer]

I don't know about you, but I find that a really comforting thought.

So does Mother Nature, I'm sure!

So Mother Nature and I agree. That's good.

Now that I've talked about the end of the Universe, I thought I would say a little something about yesterday's APOD (the one we are discussing in this thread, of course).

Click to view full size image

The Clouds of the Large Magellanic Cloud.
Team Ciel Austral -
J. C. Canonne, N. Outters, P. Bernhard, D. Chaplain, L. Bourgon

Click to view full size image

The Large Magellanic Cloud in probable RGB + Hα.
Photo: Wei-Hao Wang (IfA, U. Hawaii)

It is interesting to see how the nebulas are enhanced and the stars are suppressed in an OIII/Hα/SII image, like in picture at left. Note the dark orange, almost brownish color of the Magellanic bar in the OIII/Hα/SII image. The dark orange color would result mostly from low-level SII ionization, which is invisible in the RGB + Hα image.

The APOD from May 3, 2019, certainly gives us a new way of looking at our nearest easily visible galactic neighbour.

Ann

Their website also has a more RGB image with narrowband as well.

[Ann]

Click to view full size image

The Clouds of the Large Magellanic Cloud.
Team Ciel Austral -
J. C. Canonne, N. Outters, P. Bernhard, D. Chaplain, L. Bourgon

Click to view full size image

The Large Magellanic Cloud in probable RGB + Hα.
Photo: Wei-Hao Wang (IfA, U. Hawaii)

It is interesting to see how the nebulas are enhanced and the stars are suppressed in an OIII/Hα/SII image, like in picture at left. Note the dark orange, almost brownish color of the Magellanic bar in the OIII/Hα/SII image. The dark orange color would result mostly from low-level SII ionization, which is invisible in the RGB + Hα image.

The APOD from May 3, 2019, certainly gives us a new way of looking at our nearest easily visible galactic neighbour.

Ann

Their website also has a more RGB image with narrowband as well.

Click to view full size image

Thanks! That's a really nice image!!!

Ann