Starship Asterisk*

Sunset over the Observatory of Paris Meudon (OBSPM)
Credit & Copyright (image and text): Céline Richard
This picture, taken from the roof of the historic building of the Observatory, in Paris, a “pilier géodésique” marks the prime meridian, before the Greenwhich meridian was taken as a worldwide reference. Beyond the Observatory are two domes : one is the Panthéon, where Foucault used a pendulum to demonstrate the rotation of the Earth in 1851 (left), and the other is a Church inside the Val de Grâce Hospital (right).
Why wasn't the Observatory of Paris built on the hillock of Montmartre, at the North of Paris, while most earth observatories are built at high altitudes?

In this picture, taken from the roof of the Observatory in the South of Paris, we see the Senate, before the hillock of Montmartre. Although in 1667, the Church of Sacré-Coeur still did not exist on the hillock, the architect Claude Perrault (a brother of the famous story-teller Charles Perrault), member of the Royal Academy of Science, set the foundations of the Observatory in the southern countryside, in order to avoid the clouds of coaldust from the former little city of Paris. Indeed, at this time, the Parisians used to cook and heat their homes with charcoal. Nowadays, the historic building of the Observatory belongs to the inner city, which keeps growing.

IC1340 of the Veil Supernova Remnant
http://www.robgendlerastropics.com/IC1340-BYU.html
Copyright and credit: Image acquisition: Michael Joner and David Laney (BYU); image processing: Robert Gendler

Mosaic of 4 Panels around the Eta Carinae Nebula
http://www.glitteringlights.com/Images/ ... y2SeH-A-LB
Copyright: Marco Lorenzi
[attachment=0]etacar_HaOIIIRGB.jpg[/attachment][/i]

A deep exposure mosaic of the Pleiades and the wake they appear to leave as they move through the interstellar dust cloud.

More description and higher resolution on this page:

http://www.darkskyimages.com/oct2010/m45mosaic.html

Thanks for looking!

Scott Tucker

That is a very interesting and beautiful portrait of the Eta Carina region, Marco Lorenzi. To a person with my color preferences, the electric blue color of Theta Carina just jumped out at me! And indeed, I think it is true that Theta Carina is "bluest star" in this part of the heavens - that is, it is the star with the apparently bluest color index of the stars visible here, seen from our point of view.

There were many other fascinating little details. One thing I really liked was the crescent-shaped nebula at the far upper right. I have never seen that object photographed before. Another example of interesting nebulosity can be found near the bottom of the picture, where there is a semi-bright star surrounded by an almost perfect red ring. Fascinating.The image also brings out many of the star clusters well, not least NGC 3532 (the large somewhat scattered cluster near the "top" of the red nebulosity) and NGC 3766 ( the much more compact and very rich cluster far to the left).

The fact that you have imaged this region in OIII as well as in Ha gives a bluish-pink hue to some of the nebulosity. Fascinating. But you lose none of the true-color "feel" of the stars.

That's a great image!

Ann

Ann wrote:That is a very interesting and beautiful portrait of the Eta Carina region, Marco Lorenzi. To a person with my color preferences, the electric blue color of Theta Carina just jumped out at me! And indeed, I think it is true that Theta Carina is "bluest star" in this part of the heavens - that is, it is the star with the apparently bluest color index of the stars visible here, seen from our point of view.

There were many other fascinating little details. One thing I really liked was the crescent-shaped nebula at the far upper right. I have never seen that object photographed before. Another example of interesting nebulosity can be found near the bottom of the picture, where there is a semi-bright star surrounded by an almost perfect red ring. Fascinating.The image also brings out many of the star clusters well, not least NGC 3532 (the large somewhat scattered cluster near the "top" of the red nebulosity) and NGC 3766 ( the much more compact and very rich cluster far to the left).

The fact that you have imaged this region in OIII as well as in Ha gives a bluish-pink hue to some of the nebulosity. Fascinating. But you lose none of the true-color "feel" of the stars.

That's a great image!

Ann

Thanks a lot for your appreciation Ann. I agree that this is one of the most outstanding areas of the sky, so packed of incredible objects. Eta Carinae itself is quite outstanding, huge and so bright that cannot be missed by anybody observing with naked eye under rural skies. Thanks for the consideration on the stars color, they are quite striking too

Clear Skies
Marco