APOD: Lynds Dark Nebula 1251 (2020 Jul 03)

[APOD Robot]

Lynds Dark Nebula 1251

Explanation: Stars are forming in Lynds Dark Nebula (LDN) 1251. About 1,000 light-years away and drifting above the plane of our Milky Way galaxy, the dusty molecular cloud is part of a complex of dark nebulae mapped toward the Cepheus flare region. Across the spectrum, astronomical explorations of the obscuring interstellar clouds reveal energetic shocks and outflows associated with newborn stars, including the telltale reddish glow from scattered Herbig-Haro objects seen in this sharp image. Distant background galaxies also lurk on the scene, buried behind the dusty expanse. This alluring view imaged with a backyard telescope and broadband filters spans about two full moons on the sky, or 17 light-years at the estimated distance of LDN 1251.

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[Ann]

First of all, well done, Ara Jerahian, taking this broadband image with a backyard telescope!

And second...

As a Color Commentator and lover of all blue things, I obviously had to identify the bluest object in the field, which is this blue star, HD 215038. It really is a blue star, with a slightly negative B-V index, and it is the only star with a negative B-V index that I managed to find when I scoured the area with my software. So your image, Ara Jerahian, is so well color-balanced that it really does bring out the single bluest object in this field! Well done indeed!

As for the blue star, HD 215038, if we are to believe its uncertain Hipparcos parallax, the distance to it is about 1,000 light-years, which is the same as the distance to the dark cloud LDN 1251 itself. Fascinating.

And I don't know about the "adult" thing here - hope he's wearing clothes...

APOD Robot wrote:

Distant background galaxies also lurk on the scene, buried behind the dusty expanse.

Well, I found a possible background galaxy, which looks pretty much like a fine face-on spiral galaxy to me. (Or else it's just another patch of illuminated nebulosity.)

Have you found any others?

APOD Robot wrote:

Across the spectrum, astronomical explorations of the obscuring interstellar clouds reveal energetic shocks and outflows associated with newborn stars, including the telltale reddish glow from scattered Herbig-Haro objects seen in this sharp image.

Well, the only reddish object that I found in the image is the object that I marked with a number 3. It looks like a faint emission nebula (with a yellow star inside it) to me. Number 1 looks definitely like a young star with jets (and, I guess, Herbig Haro objects, which are illuminated patches of nebulosity caused by jets from the young star hitting the dusty environment.) As what number 2 is, I don't know!

[BDanielMayfield]

As for the blue star, HD 215038, if we are to believe its uncertain Hipparcos parallax, the distance to it is about 1,000 light-years, which is the same as the distance to the dark cloud LDN 1251 itself.

As deep as we are into the GAIA mission surely there is a much improved parallax measurement for HD 215038 (as well as about a billion others), but all this new stellar info has been slow to enter easily assessable sources like wikipedia. Is there a way for non-professional astronomers to look up GAIA data on any particular star?

[neufer]

---

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[orin stepanek]

What's a little darkness between stars?
Darkness hides a lot of things! Newborn stars included !

[neufer]

What's a little darkness between stars?
Darkness hides a lot of things! Newborn stars included !

Click to play embedded YouTube video.

<<"Democracy Dies in Darkness" was the first slogan to be officially adopted by The Washington Post in its 140-year history. According to the newspaper, the phrase was popularized by investigative journalist Bob Woodward. Woodward used the phrase in a 2007 piece criticizing government secrecy. Woodward said he did not coin the phrase himself, instead attributing the phrase to a judge ruling on a First Amendment case, believed to be from Circuit Judge Damon Keith. The newspaper said it decided to adopt an official slogan in 2016, before Donald Trump won the Republican nomination for president of the United States. This started a process which involved a small group of newspaper employees meeting to develop ideas for slogans. The group eventually settled on "Democracy Dies in Darkness" after brainstorming over 500 options. On Twitter, writers at other media organizations mocked the slogan, while news organization ProPublica described the slogan as "awesome". Online magazine Slate said the slogan sounded "like a catchphrase more befitting a doomsday prophet than a daily newspaper", and compared the slogan to the titles of fifteen heavy metal albums, saying that they were "less dark" than the Washington Post slogan. Dean Baquet, executive editor of The New York Times, said the slogan "sounds like the next Batman movie".>>

[Guest]

I’m just wondering, as the non-astronomer I am..., are dark nebulas generally closer to us than the brightly illuminated colored ones? Being that fewer stars lie between us and the nearer clouds than ones further away from us to illuminate the clouds?

[Chris Peterson]

I’m just wondering, as the non-astronomer I am..., are dark nebulas generally closer to us than the brightly illuminated colored ones? Being that fewer stars lie between us and the nearer clouds than ones further away from us to illuminate the clouds?

Illuminated nebulas are not illuminated by stars between us and them, but by stars that are inside them. In almost every case, illuminated nebulas are physically associated with the stars that light them up, either by reflection of emission (there are a handful of exceptions, like the Pleiades, but even there the dust, gas, and stars are all together in location).

So there's no relationship between the type of nebula and the distance from us.

[NGC3314]

Well, I found a possible background galaxy, which looks pretty much like a fine face-on spiral galaxy to me. (Or else it's just another patch of illuminated nebulosity.)

Have you found any others?

As an aficionado of seeing galaxies though other galaxies' dust, I know that one! It's UGC 12160, which I first learned about from the caption on one of the pictures in the gallery in the back of a Sky and Telescope issue. Here's a shallower image which shows its spiral structure more clearly.

Bill Keel

[Ann]

As for the blue star, HD 215038, if we are to believe its uncertain Hipparcos parallax, the distance to it is about 1,000 light-years, which is the same as the distance to the dark cloud LDN 1251 itself.

As deep as we are into the GAIA mission surely there is a much improved parallax measurement for HD 215038 (as well as about a billion others), but all this new stellar info has been slow to enter easily assessable sources like wikipedia. Is there a way for non-professional astronomers to look up GAIA data on any particular star?

I wish I knew!

Ann

[johnnydeep]

APOD Robot wrote:

Distant background galaxies also lurk on the scene, buried behind the dusty expanse.

Well, I found a possible background galaxy, which looks pretty much like a fine face-on spiral galaxy to me. (Or else it's just another patch of illuminated nebulosity.)

Have you found any others?

Yeah, I found the same one you pointed out, and maybe one other that "lurks" under the tail of what looks like the fossil of a fish to me:

[Ann]

Well, I found a possible background galaxy, which looks pretty much like a fine face-on spiral galaxy to me. (Or else it's just another patch of illuminated nebulosity.)

Have you found any others?

As an aficionado of seeing galaxies though other galaxies' dust, I know that one! It's UGC 12160, which I first learned about from the caption on one of the pictures in the gallery in the back of a Sky and Telescope issue. Here's a shallower image which shows its spiral structure more clearly.

Bill Keel

UGC12160BRlogsm.png

Thanks!

Ann

[Ann]

APOD Robot wrote:

Distant background galaxies also lurk on the scene, buried behind the dusty expanse.

Well, I found a possible background galaxy, which looks pretty much like a fine face-on spiral galaxy to me. (Or else it's just another patch of illuminated nebulosity.)

Have you found any others?

Yeah, I found the same one you pointed out, and maybe one other that "lurks" under the tail of what looks like the fossil of a fish to me:

background galaxy in ldn1251.JPG

Yes, I wondered about that one too. In your nice large closeup, it sure looks like a galaxy.

Ann

[Ann]

LDN 1251 and friends, annotated. Note the PGC and LEDA galaxies.
Photo: Jim Thommes Astrophotography.

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Another picture of LDN 1251 and friends. Photo: Vendor of Cloudy Nights.

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I found the nice picture at left of LDN 1251 and friends! Note the PGC and LEDA galaxies. The picture is not as deep as the APOD, so we don't see any Herbig-Haro objects or small stars with jets. Note the HD numbers of some of the stars, and the Dobashi designations of some of the extra-dark clouds!

And in the picture at right, you can see two of the galaxies (far left and far right) rather well. You can also see some of the young stars in the dark cloud having tantrums.

Ann

P.S. Who's Dobashi? Sounds like the title of a film.

[johnnydeep]

I found the nice picture at left of LDN 1251 and friends! Note the PGC and LEDA galaxies. The picture is not as deep as the APOD, so we don't see any Herbig-Haro objects or small stars with jets. Note the HD numbers of some of the stars, and the Dobashi designations of some of the extra-dark clouds!

And in the picture at right, you can see two of the galaxies (far left and far right) rather well. You can also see some of the young stars in the dark cloud having tantrums.

Ann

Nice! But sadly, that other galaxy below the fish tail seems to have evaporated. Wish I could aim Hubble there to be sure though!

[Ann]

Steve Gottlieb wrote:

In 1995 UGC 12160 was the host of the core-collapse supernova 1995X.

Ann