APOD: Orion Nebula in Oxygen, Hydrogen,... (2020 Oct 04)

[APOD Robot]

Orion Nebula in Oxygen, Hydrogen, and Sulfur

Explanation: Few astronomical sights excite the imagination like the nearby stellar nursery known as the Orion Nebula. The Nebula's glowing gas surrounds hot young stars at the edge of an immense interstellar molecular cloud. Many of the filamentary structures visible in the featured image are actually shock waves - fronts where fast moving material encounters slow moving gas. The Orion Nebula spans about 40 light years and is located about 1500 light years away in the same spiral arm of our Galaxy as the Sun. The Great Nebula in Orion can be found with the unaided eye just below and to the left of the easily identifiable belt of three stars in the popular constellation Orion. The image shows the nebula in three colors specifically emitted by hydrogen, oxygen, and sulfur gas. The whole Orion Nebula cloud complex, which includes the Horsehead Nebula, will slowly disperse over the next 100,000 years.

<< Previous APOD

This Day in APOD

Next APOD >>

[Ann]

Orion in Oxygen, Hydrogen and Sulfur. Photo: César Blanco González.

---

The Orion Nebula in true color. Photo: David Malin. © Anglo-Australian Observatory.

---

Since I am Starship Asterisk*'s resident Color Commentator, I felt the need to show you a picture of the Orion Nebula in true color. No one can be better suited for that than David Malin, who took extremely great care with his colors and took all his color photographs through red, green and blue glass plates.

David Malin explained that the center of the Orion Nebula looks very bright and slightly yellowish due to the mixture of greenish OIII emission and red Hα emission (and some bluish Hβ emission, too). The center of the Orion Nebula is highly ionized, and the overall color of the emission is yellowish. The rest of the Orion Nebula is dominated by reddish Hα emission, but it does contain other emission lines, too, which dilutes its red color.

Widefield Orion. Photo: u/Cokeblob11 .

---

Check out this very fine widefield picture of Orion. (The 3.76 MB full size version is here.) You can see that the Orion Nebula is quite small, very bright, and its color can be described as a pale shade of pink. By contrast, Barnard's Loop, as well as the background of the Horsehead Nebula, look very red.

So if you want some advice from me, take a look at the pictures by David Malin and u/Cokeblob11 to find out what the Orion Nebula would "really" look like, if the cones in our eyes were many, many times more sensitive to extremely faint colored light!

Ann

[orin stepanek]

Orion in Oxygen, Hydrogen and Sulfur. Photo: César Blanco González.

---

The Orion Nebula in true color. Photo: David Malin. © Anglo-Australian Observatory.

---

Since I am Starship Asterisk*'s resident Color Commentator, I felt the need to show you a picture of the Orion Nebula in true color. No one can be better suited for that than David Malin, who took extremely great care with his colors and took all his color photographs through red, green and blue glass plates.

David Malin explained that the center of the Orion Nebula looks very bright and slightly yellowish due to the mixture of greenish OIII emission and red Hα emission (and some bluish Hβ emission, too). The center of the Orion Nebula is highly ionized, and the overall color of the emission is yellowish. The rest of the Orion Nebula is dominated by reddish Hα emission, but it does contain other emission lines, too, which dilutes its red color.

Widefield Orion. Photo: u/Cokeblob11 .

---

Check out this very fine widefield picture of Orion. (The 3.76 MB full size version is here.) You can see that the Orion Nebula is quite small, very bright, and its color can be described as a pale shade of pink. By contrast, Barnard's Loop, as well as the background of the Horsehead Nebula, look very red.

So if you want some advice from me, take a look at the pictures by David Malin and u/Cokeblob11 to find out what the Orion Nebula would "really" look like, if the cones in our eyes were many, many times more sensitive to extremely faint colored light!

Ann

What I like about today's APOD is that it is like a beautiful oil painting!

[neufer]

Lord Nibbler

---

<<Lord Nibbler masquerades as an innocent, cute and unintelligent pet during most of the Futurama series. In reality, he is a highly intelligent Nibblonian and capable of communication, but tries to avoid suspicion while he protects the Earth in general and Fry in particular from the Brainspawn. As with all Nibblonians, Nibbler's feces consist of dark matter, which can be used as starship fuel. It is an extremely dense material, "each pound of which weighs over ten thousand pounds", according to Professor Farnsworth in the season 1 episode, "Love's Labours Lost in Space". After he accidentally reveals to the Planet Express crew that he can speak in Bender's Big Score, he forgets to wipe their memory of his intelligence, which it turns out does not affect them much, and from then on he speaks freely to the crew. In the pilot episode, Nibbler's shadow can be seen as Fry falls into the cryogenic freezer, alluding to what is revealed in the fourth season episode The Why of Fry, which is that Nibbler helped send Fry to the future.>>

[johnnydeep]

Orion Nebula in Oxygen, Hydrogen, and Sulfur

Explanation: Few astronomical sights excite the imagination like the nearby stellar nursery known as the Orion Nebula. The Nebula's glowing gas surrounds hot young stars at the edge of an immense interstellar molecular cloud. Many of the filamentary structures visible in the featured image are actually shock waves - fronts where fast moving material encounters slow moving gas. The Orion Nebula spans about 40 light years and is located about 1500 light years away in the same spiral arm of our Galaxy as the Sun. The Great Nebula in Orion can be found with the unaided eye just below and to the left of the easily identifiable belt of three stars in the popular constellation Orion. The image shows the nebula in three colors specifically emitted by hydrogen, oxygen, and sulfur gas. The whole Orion Nebula cloud complex, which includes the Horsehead Nebula, will slowly disperse over the next 100,000 years.

Anyone else see the eagle dead center looking up and to the left? (EDIT: I meant left, not right!)

[orin stepanek]

Orion Nebula in Oxygen, Hydrogen, and Sulfur

Explanation: Few astronomical sights excite the imagination like the nearby stellar nursery known as the Orion Nebula. The Nebula's glowing gas surrounds hot young stars at the edge of an immense interstellar molecular cloud. Many of the filamentary structures visible in the featured image are actually shock waves - fronts where fast moving material encounters slow moving gas. The Orion Nebula spans about 40 light years and is located about 1500 light years away in the same spiral arm of our Galaxy as the Sun. The Great Nebula in Orion can be found with the unaided eye just below and to the left of the easily identifiable belt of three stars in the popular constellation Orion. The image shows the nebula in three colors specifically emitted by hydrogen, oxygen, and sulfur gas. The whole Orion Nebula cloud complex, which includes the Horsehead Nebula, will slowly disperse over the next 100,000 years.

Anyone else see the eagle dead center looking up and to the left? (EDIT: I meant left, not right!)

At First I Thought you may have been looking at a blurred Horses Head Nebula; but now I think it is in the Flame Nebula! JMHO!

[TheZuke!]

Anyone else see the eagle dead center looking up and to the left? (EDIT: I meant left, not right!)

Do you mean this one?