Found Images: 2023 February

[starsurfer]

Abell 72
https://www.chart32.de/index.php/component/k2/item/358
Copyright: CHART32
Processing: Bernd Flach-Wilken

[starsurfer]

RNO 134
http://www.astrophoton.com/RNO134.htm
Copyright: Bernhard Hubl

Click to view full size image

[bystander]

Spotting a Hidden Exoplanet
ESO Picture of the Week | SPHERE | 2023 Feb 20

Image Credit: ESO/Mesa, De Rosa et al

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No, you’re not seeing double: this Picture of the Week shows two images of a Jupiter-like planet that orbits the star AF Leporis. The planet has been imaged by two independent groups of astronomers using the SPHERE instrument on ESO’s Very Large Telescope (VLT) in Chile. But why did they target this particular star?

The two groups, led by Dino Mesa (INAF, Italy) and Robert De Rosa (ESO, Chile), studied star catalogues from the European Space Agency’s Hipparcos and Gaia satellites. Over the years, these two space missions have accurately pinpointed the position and motion of stars in our galaxy using astrometry. Planets exert a gravitational tug on their host stars, perturbing their trajectory on the sky. The two teams found that the star AF Leporis exhibited such a disturbed trajectory, a telltale sign that a planet could be hiding there.

As the two groups took a closer look at this system with the VLT, they managed to directly image the planet that orbits AF Leporis. They both used the SPHERE instrument, which corrects the blurring caused by atmospheric turbulence using adaptive optics, and also blocks the light from the star with a special mask, revealing the planet next to it. They found that the planet is just a few times more massive than Jupiter, making it the lightest exoplanet detected with the combined use of astrometric measurements and direct imaging.

The AF Leporis system shares similar features to our Solar System. The star has roughly the same mass, size and temperature as the Sun, and the planet orbits it at a distance similar to that between Saturn and the Sun. The system also has a debris belt with similar characteristics as the Kuiper belt. Since the AF Leporis system is only 24 million years old ––about 200 times younger than the Sun–– further studies of this system can shed light on how our own Solar System was formed.

AF Lep b: The Lowest Mass Planet Detected Coupling
Astrometric and Direct Imaging Data ~ D. Mesa et al

• arXiv > astro-ph > arXiv:2302.06213 > 13 Feb 2023

Direct Imaging Discovery of a Super-Jovian around
the Young Sun-like Star AF Leporis ~ Robert J. De Rosa et al

• arXiv > astro-ph > arXiv:2302.06332 > 13 Feb 2023

Astrometric Accelerations as Dynamical Beacons:
A Giant Planet Imaged Inside the Debris Disk
of the Young Star AF Lep ~ Kyle Franson et al

• arXiv > astro-ph > arXiv:2302.05420 > 10 Feb 2023

[bystander]

Cosmic Contortions
ESA Hubble Picture of the Week | 2023 Feb 20

A cluster of large galaxies, surrounded by various stars and smaller galaxies on a dark background. The central cluster is mostly made of bright elliptical galaxies that are surrounded by a warm glow. Nearby the cluster is the stretched, distorted arc of a galaxy, gravitationally lensed by the cluster.

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Image Credit: ESA/Hubble & NASA, H. Ebeling

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A massive galaxy cluster in the constellation Cetus dominates the centre of this image from the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope. This image is populated with a serene collection of elliptical and spiral galaxies, but galaxies surrounding the central cluster — which is named SPT-CL J0019-2026 — appear stretched into bright arcs, as if distorted by a gargantuan magnifying glass. This cosmic contortion is called gravitational lensing, and it occurs when a massive object like a galaxy cluster has a sufficiently powerful gravitational field to distort and magnify the light from background objects. Gravitational lenses magnify light from objects that would usually be too distant and faint to observe, and so these lenses can extend Hubble’s view even deeper into the Universe.

This observation is part of an ongoing project to fill short gaps in Hubble’s observing schedule by systematically exploring the most massive galaxy clusters in the distant Universe, in the hopes of identifying promising targets for further study with both Hubble and the NASA/ESA/CSA James Webb Space Telescope. This particular galaxy cluster lies at a vast distance of 4.6 billion light years from Earth.

Each year, the Space Telescope Science Institute is inundated with observing proposals for Hubble, in which astronomers suggest targets for observation. Even after selecting only the very best proposals, scheduling observations of all of Hubble’s targets for a year is a formidable task. There is sometimes a small fraction of observing time left unused in Hubble’s schedule, so in its ‘spare time’ the telescope has a collection of objects to explore — including the lensing galaxy cluster shown in this image.

[Richardwhitehead]

The Jellyfish Nebula and friends ( IC443) in SHO
I posted a half finished image of this a few days ago and was lucky enough to get a few moonless hours to re-do the OIII and SII. I have to say I'm fairly pleased with the result which has enough data to produce a deep image and faint details that are not often imaged. This one subject has taken up my last 4 imaging nights over a month in Vermont.
The Jellyfish Nebula is a supernova remnant variously estimated to be between 3000 and 30,000 years old and lies around 5000 LY from earth.
Tech stuff:
Location : St. George, VT
Scope: Takahashi FSQ106 EDX4
Mount: A-P 1100 GTOAE
Camera: QHY600M
SHO Image 3nm Chroma Filters
All 20min subs
Ha x16 OIII x15, SII x12
Processed in PI and PS 2022

[bystander]

Venus over the BlackGEM Telescopes
ESO Picture of the Week | 2023 Feb 27

Click to view full size image 1 or image 2

Image Credit: Zdeněk Bardon (bardon.cz)/ESO

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In this Picture of the Week, Venus is shining brightly over ESO’s La Silla Observatory in Chile. The picture was taken just before dawn, towards the East, and also features the diffuse zodiacal light –– sunlight scattered by dust particles in the Solar System.

The three domes to the left of the road are the BlackGEM telescopes, built by Radboud University, the Netherlands Research School for Astronomy (NOVA), and KU Leuven. BlackGEM will search for the afterglow of some of the most dramatic events in the Universe, such as the collision of black holes and neutron stars. The ripples in space and time generated by these violent events can be detected by the LIGO and Virgo observatories. Thanks to their large field of view, the BlackGEM telescopes can locate the source of visible light from the afterglow of these events, and thereby pinpoint where the collision took place. This allows astronomers to study in greater detail what happens when black holes and neutron stars merge.

[bystander]

Galactic Seascape
ESA Hubble Picture of the Week | 2023 Feb 27

A spiral galaxy lies just off-centre. It has large, faint, reddish spiral arms and a bright, reddish core. These lie over two brighter blue spiral arms. These are patchy, with blotches of star formation. Long trails of these bright blotches trail down from the lower spiral arm, resembling tendrils. The background is black, lightly scattered with small galaxies and stars, and a larger elliptical galaxy in one corner.

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Image Credit: ESA/Hubble & NASA, M. Gullieuszik

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A jellyfish galaxy with trailing tentacles of stars hangs in inky blackness in this image from the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope. As Jellyfish galaxies move through intergalactic space they are slowly stripped of gas, which trails behind the galaxy in tendrils illuminated by clumps of star formation. These blue tendrils are visible drifting below the core of this galaxy, and give it its jellyfish-like appearance. This particular jellyfish galaxy — known as JO201 (aka Ka 364) — lies in the constellation Cetus, which is named after a sea monster from ancient Greek mythology. This sea-monster-themed constellation adds to the nautical theme of this image.

The tendrils of jellyfish galaxies extend beyond the bright disc of the galaxy core. This particular observation comes from an investigation into the sizes, masses and ages of the clumps of star formation in the tendrils of jellyfish galaxies. Astronomers hope that this will provide a breakthrough in understanding the connection between ram-pressure stripping — the process that creates the tendrils of jellyfish galaxies — and star formation.

This galactic seascape was captured by Wide Field Camera 3 (WFC3), a versatile instrument that captures images at ultraviolet and visible wavelengths. WFC3 is the source of some of Hubble’s most spectacular images, from a view of Jupiter and Europa to a revisit to the Pillars of Creation.

UV and Hα HST observations of 6 GASP jellyfish galaxies ~ Marco Gullieuszik et al

• arXiv > astro-ph > arXiv:2301.08279 > 19 Jan 2023

HST imaging of star-forming clumps in 6 GASP ram-pressure stripped galaxies ~ Eric Giunchi et al

• arXiv > astro-ph > arXiv:2302.10615 > 21 Feb 2023

[bystander]

Seeing Triple
ESA Webb Picture of the Month | 2023 Feb 28

Stars and galaxies, mostly reddish in colour, are scattered across a dark background. In the foreground upper-right corner, a large elliptical galaxy is surrounded by many smaller similar galaxies in a cluster. These galaxies have bright centres and a diffuse white glow around them. The large galaxy has distorted images and arcs around it.

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Image Credit: ESA/Webb, NASA & CSA, P. Kelly

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This observation from the NASA/ESA/CSA James Webb Space Telescope features the massive galaxy cluster RX J2129. Due to Gravitational lensing, this observation contains three different images of the same supernova-hosting galaxy, which you can see in closer detail here. Gravitational lensing occurs when a massive celestial body causes a sufficient curvature of spacetime to bend the path of light travelling past or through it, almost like a vast lens. In this case, the lens is the galaxy cluster RX J2129, located around 3.2 billion light-years from Earth in the constellation Aquarius. Gravitational lensing can cause background objects to appear strangely distorted, as can be seen by the concentric arcs of light in the upper right of this image.

Astronomers discovered the supernova in the triply-lensed background galaxy using observations from the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope, and they suspected that they had found a very distant Type Ia supernova. These supernovae always produce a fairly consistent luminosity — at the same distance, one looks as bright as any other — which makes them particularly helpful to astronomers. As their distance from Earth is proportional to how dim they appear in the night sky, objects with known brightness can be used as 'standard candles' to measure astronomical distances.

The almost uniform luminosity of a Type Ia supernova could also allow astronomers to understand how strongly the galaxy cluster RX J2129 is magnifying background objects, and therefore how massive the galaxy cluster is. As well as distorting the images of background objects, gravitational lenses can cause distant objects to appear much brighter than they would otherwise. If the gravitational lens magnifies something with a known brightness, such as a Type Ia supernova, then astronomers can use this to measure the ‘prescription’ of the gravitational lens.

[barretosmed]

MOON IN COLOR (MINERAL MOON)


MORE DETAILS
https://www.astrobin.com/full/w2xo5x/0/

The Moon is usually seen in subtle shades of gray or yellow
The different colors are recognized to correspond to real differences in the chemical composition of the lunar surface.
The blue tones reveal areas rich in ilmenite, which contains iron, titanium and oxygen, mainly titanium, while the orange and purple colors show regions relatively poor in titanium and iron. The white / gray tones refer to areas of greater exposure to sunlight.

EQUIPMENTS:
ZWO ASI 6200MC COLED
Esprit 150mm
Baader Moon Filter
Date: 03/01/2023
Time: 21:30
Location: Munhoz - MG - Brazil

PROCESSING AND CAPTURE:
Software: Adobe Photoshop, SharpCap, AutoStakkert AutoStackert and Registax 6.

Copyright: Fernando Oliveira de Menezes
Email: Barretosmed@hotmail.com
(Organizing author of the book Amateur Astrophotography in Brazil)
https://clubedeautores.com.br/livro/ast ... -no-brasil

Click to view full size image