APOD: Unexpected Clouds Toward the Galaxy... (2023 Jan 17)

[johnnydeep]

The APOD for 1-17-23 is absolutely spectacular and looks almost like a painting. I've made it my desktop image.

Question: Why aren't there any light spikes -- that one usually sees in these kinds of photos -- around any of the local stars that are located within our Milky Way galaxy? Surprisingly, the stars in this view are perfect spheres of different sizes, and it is a pleasure to view them this way.

Was an app used to filter out the light spikes around the local stars?

JKLJ

The reason there are no spikes is because this image was taken using a refractor, which has no secondary mirror support struts that would have produced the spikes as in a reflector like Hubble or a large Dobsonian! The particular scope used in this case can be seen here: https://takahashiamerica.com/products/t ... -telescope (see this and other details of the hardware and software at the "shown in blue" link from the text).

[NGC3314]

Question: Why aren't there any light spikes -- that one usually sees in these kinds of photos -- around any of the local stars that are located within our Milky Way galaxy? Surprisingly, the stars in this view are perfect spheres of different sizes, and it is a pleasure to view them this way.

All the telescopes described in the research note for this discovery were (small) refractors, which do not have the central obstructions or supporting struts needed by (most) reflectors for secondary mirrors, so they do not produce the familiar diffraction spikes (caused by an illuminated aperture which is not a uniform circle) ) that reflecting systems do.

[OgetayK]

I see more similarities with NGC 4651 than with IC 2497.



"...The jet-like feature is strikingly coherent and narrow. This feature was previously reported by Vorontsov-Velyaminov (1959) but never interpreted as a stellar tidal stream. Moreover, our deep image shows an additional spectacular crescent shaped shell surrounding the east side of the galaxy that corresponds to the apocenter of the dwarf galaxy. Interestingly, a possible second arc on the western side of the galaxy can also be seen in this image. This structure is less obvious because it is partially hidden by the galaxy's disk. This suggests we are observing a moderately inclined structure projected into the halo of NGC 4651..." https://www.cosmotography.com/images/st ... ights.html

Very good comparison, AVAO!

I found a link to that picture of NGC 4651, and I'm wondering about the insert and the small blue star in brackets. Could that possibly be the core of the small galaxy that was broken up to create that umbrella-like structure of NGC 4651? Although I really wouldn't expect a galactic core to be blue.

And if we are seeing anything even remotely similar in Andromeda, what could the intruding galaxy be? Not, say, M32?

Ann

If I compare the red Hα structures of today's APOD with those of https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap221024.html, the red hallo around M31 is completely missing on today's APOD. the red Hα structure of today's APOD therefore seems to be rather detached from M31 in our galaxy. the OIII shell structure, in turn, does not show any interaction with the red Hα structure. For me, M31, the OIII shell structure and the Hα structure are rather far apart. the fine stripe structure of the OIII shell structure indicates that it could also be very close to us. Research will show in the future.

I'm curious about this red Hα halo around Andromeda. Not to mention previous works, the following comparison has a significant part missing. Maybe the photographers can explain if this is caused by postprocessing (maybe DBE?).

Image 1: https://ibb.co/cX6Lqnz
Image 2: https://ibb.co/6N1c1Ny

[VictorBorun]

I'm curious about this red Hα halo around Andromeda. Not to mention previous works, the following comparison has a significant part missing. Maybe the photographers can explain if this is caused by postprocessing (maybe DBE?).
Image 1: https://ibb.co/cX6Lqnz
Image 2: https://ibb.co/6N1c1Ny

Sorry, what is DBE?
Does it imitate changing clouds in 2022 to 2023 APOD like this?

Click to view full size image 1 or image 2

...

[OgetayK]

I'm curious about this red Hα halo around Andromeda. Not to mention previous works, the following comparison has a significant part missing. Maybe the photographers can explain if this is caused by postprocessing (maybe DBE?).
Image 1: https://ibb.co/cX6Lqnz
Image 2: https://ibb.co/6N1c1Ny

Sorry, what is DBE?
Does it imitate changing clouds in 2022 to 2023 APOD like this?

Click to view full size image 1 or image 2

Unexpected Clouds 2023.pngUnexpected Clouds 2022.png

...

DBE is Dynamic Background Extraction tool in PixInsight. Which is normally used for galaxy/nebulae surrounded by dark background. You manually define the "background" --which is supposed to be just dark sky-- so that any uniformity issues on the image are eliminated (say that left side of the image is brighter due to the light rises from the ground, it removes that). But if you mistakenly select the area where actually there is a cloud data, you remove that too. It's hard to predict because it smooths out to surrounding spots a lot. From your images, you can see most of the structures overlap and there is actually no structural change but some of the bright backgrounds like Ha areas are gone. However, I'm not sure. I'm just hypothesizing. This needs to be answered by the person who processed the image. I believe especially the halo around Andromeda is gone because of processing to reveal the Ha structures within Andromeda.

[VictorBorun]

I'm curious about this red Hα halo around Andromeda. Not to mention previous works, the following comparison has a significant part missing. Maybe the photographers can explain if this is caused by postprocessing (maybe DBE?).
Image 1: https://ibb.co/cX6Lqnz
Image 2: https://ibb.co/6N1c1Ny

Sorry, what is DBE?
Does it imitate changing clouds in 2022 to 2023 APOD like this?

Click to view full size image 1 or image 2

Unexpected Clouds 2023.pngUnexpected Clouds 2022.png

...

DBE is Dynamic Background Extraction tool in PixInsight. Which is normally used for galaxy/nebulae surrounded by dark background. You manually define the "background" --which is supposed to be just dark sky-- so that any uniformity issues on the image are eliminated (say that left side of the image is brighter due to the light rises from the ground, it removes that). But if you mistakenly select the area where actually there is a cloud data, you remove that too. It's hard to predict because it smooths out to surrounding spots a lot. From your images, you can see most of the structures overlap and there is actually no structural change but some of the bright backgrounds like Ha areas are gone. However, I'm not sure. I'm just hypothesizing. This needs to be answered by the person who processed the image. I believe especially the halo around Andromeda is gone because of processing to reveal the Ha structures within Andromeda.

to not add confusion, would it be better to present a difficult scene (with some pale things hard to see through the noisy foreground) as a pair of images hanging one over the other so you place your mouse on the picture and make pale things brighter, but along with the noisy foreground, or you place your mouse elsewhere and see a clearer picture but no pale things?

[Above+Beyond]

Crazy as it sounds, someone is taking the null H-alpha observation as an indication that the oxygen must be pure, meaning it has an artificial origin -- namely it's all the oxygen lost by Apollo 13 some 50+ years ago.

This puts the cloud quite close, so there are at least two kinds of parallax measurements suggested which would at least rule out this possibility; they might already be present in the data but were not noticed because of smearing due to all the stacking.

See: VISNS.NeoCities.org/O-III_cloud_M31.html for more details.

[VictorBorun]

Crazy as it sounds, someone is taking the null H-alpha observation as an indication that the oxygen must be pure, meaning it has an artificial origin -- namely it's all the oxygen lost by Apollo 13 some 50+ years ago.

This puts the cloud quite close, so there are at least two kinds of parallax measurements suggested which would at least rule out this possibility; they might already be present in the data but were not noticed because of smearing due to all the stacking.

See: VISNS.NeoCities.org/O-III_cloud_M31.html for more details.

to what extent that oxygen would dilute if let out of a container in the outer space?
Can it be contained by interplanetary space hydrogen?
I believe that the oxygen would quickly dissipate and mix with that hydrogen

[starsurfer]

A new publication has been published! IMO it is a remnant of an active phase of M31 in the past.