Veil Nebula (Pickering's Triangle) (APOD 01 Jul 2008)

[emc]

http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap080701.html

Another pretty nebula... interesting how this one contains such a menagerie of geometric-like shapes.

Couldn't help but think of our own star and feel grateful for its shape

[orin stepanek]

I believe Pickering's Triangle is just a part of the Veil Nebula. It is interesting how parts of Nebulae get there own name.

Orin

[emc]

Another pretty nebula...

I must confess... I can't help but feel a little demented finding beauty in the aftermath of such a violent explosion. ... and dementia is always beckoning!

It's also wierd quoting oneself...

[emc]

It is interesting how parts of Nebulae get there own name.

It is a good way to honor the astronomer... but there is more than one triangle type shape although only the one prominent.

Are different areas named for other astronomers?

[neufer]

It is interesting how parts of Nebulae get there own name.

It is a good way to honor the astronomer...
but there is more than one triangle type shape although only the one prominent.

There is more than one Pickering:
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<<William Henry Pickering (February 15, 1858 – January 17, 1938) was an American astronomer, brother of Edward Charles Pickering.

He discovered Saturn's ninth moon Phoebe in 1899 from plates taken in 1898. He also believed he had discovered a tenth moon in 1905 from plates taken in 1904, which he called "Themis". Unfortunately "Themis" does not exist.

Following George Darwin, he speculated in 1907 that the moon was once a part of the earth and that it broke away where now the Pacific Ocean lies. He also proposed some sort of continental drift (even before Alfred Wegener) and speculated that America, Asia, Africa, and Europe once formed a single continent, which broke up because of the separation of the moon.

In 1908 he made a statement regarding the possibility of airplanes that had not yet been invented, saying that "a popular fantasy is to suppose that flying machines could be used to drop dynamite on the enemy in time of war".

He led solar eclipse expeditions and studied craters on the Moon, and hypothesized that changes in the appearance of the crater Eratosthenes were due to "lunar insects". He claimed to have found vegetation on the moon.

In 1919, he predicted the existence and position of a Planet X based on anomalies in the positions of Uranus and Neptune but a search of Mount Wilson Observatory photographs failed to find the predicted planet. Pluto was later discovered at Flagstaff by Clyde Tombaugh in 1930, but in any case it is now known that Pluto's mass is far too small to have appreciable gravitational effects on Uranus or Neptune, and the anomalies are accounted for when today's much more accurate values of planetary masses are used in calculating orbits. When the planet was named, he interpreted its symbol as a monogram referring to himself and Lowell by the phrase "Pickering-Lowell".

Pickering constructed and established several observatories or astronomical observation stations, notably including Percival Lowell's Flagstaff Observatory. He spent much of the later part of his life at his private observatory in Jamaica. He produced a photographic atlas of the Moon: The Moon : A Summary of the Existing Knowledge of our Satellite — New York: Doubleday, Page & Company, 1903.

Pickering crater on the Moon is jointly named after him and his brother Edward Charles Pickering.>>

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Henry_Pickering
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<<Edward Charles Pickering (July 19, 1846–February 3, 1919) was an American astronomer and physicist, brother of William Henry Pickering.

Along with Carl Vogel, Pickering discovered the first spectroscopic binary stars. He wrote Elements of Physical Manipulations (2 vol., 1873–76).

Pickering attended Boston Latin School, and received his B.S. from Harvard in 1865. Later, he served as director of Harvard College Observatory from 1877 to his death in 1919, where he made great leaps forward in the gathering of stellar spectra through the use of photography. At Harvard, he recruited many women to work for him, including Annie Jump Cannon, Henrietta Swan Leavitt, and Antonia Maury. These women, who came to be known as "Pickering's Harem" by the scientific community, made several important discoveries at HCO.

In 1876 he co-founded the Appalachian Mountain Club.

In 1911 he co-founded the American Association of Variable Star Observers (AAVSO) with William T. Olcott.>>

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_Charles_Pickering
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[emc]

hi neufer, You are truly "the labouring man that tills the fertile soil". Thanks!

[emc]

He led solar eclipse expeditions and studied craters on the Moon, and hypothesized that changes in the appearance of the crater Eratosthenes were due to "lunar insects". He claimed to have found vegetation on the moon.

W.H. Pickering would have been fun to have on Asterisk!

Apparently his brother Ed 8) was a better astronomer.

[neufer]

[W.H. Pickering] led solar eclipse expeditions and studied craters on the Moon, and hypothesized that changes in the appearance of the crater Eratosthenes were due to "lunar insects".

W.H. Pickering would have been fun to have on Asterisk!

I never Metaluna tick on Asterisk I didn't like:
http://www.fantascienza.com/cinema/citt ... ia/007.JPG
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/This_Island_Earth
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0047577/

You don't suppose? :
http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap080630.html
http://thegalleryofmonstertoys.com/60sw ... utant.html

Apparently his brother Ed 8) was a better astronomer.

It's probably not PC, anymore, to mention "Pickering's Harem" .
Pickering's ménage à Triangle:
http://www.nytimes.com/imagepages/2006/ ... ready.html

[NoelC]

What we see and understand today is a more thorough and complete view than when astronomers of yesteryear viewed these things.

As the whole of the veil complex is quite large in the sky (something like 10 full moons across), and the ability to make digital mosaics is only a recent development, it's understandable that Pickering and others didn't necessarily lump all the parts together under one name.

I only wish it were made plain that the colors in this image are false. The actual visual color runs to red and teal owing to glowing sulfur, hydrogen, and oxygen, not orange and violet as shown in the APOD.

It's a beautiful high resolution image. Oh, how I'd love to look through a 4 meter telescope some day.

-Noel