The Colors of IC 1795 (2009 Dec 10)

[APOD Robot]

The Colors of IC 1795

Explanation: This colorful cosmic portrait features glowing gas and dark dust clouds in IC 1795, a star forming region in the northern constellation Cassiopeia. The nebula's colors were created by adopting the Hubble false-color palette for mapping narrow emission from oxygen, hydrogen, and sulfur atoms to blue, green and red colors, and further blending the data with images of the region recorded through broadband filters. Not far on the sky from the famous Double Star Cluster in Perseus, IC 1795 is itself located next to IC 1805, the Heart Nebula, as part of a complex of star forming regions that lie at the edge of a large molecular cloud. Located just over 6,000 light-years away, the larger star forming complex sprawls along the Perseus spiral arm of our Milky Way Galaxy. At that distance, this picture would span about 70 light-years across IC 1795.

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[emc]

Almost immediately after looking at today’s APOD I got an image of Challenger leaving the launch pad and disintegrating shortly after take-off.

[orin stepanek]

Twas truly a sad day in the space program Ed.

http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap091210.html
With all the hydrogen and oxygen floating around in the dust clouds its a no wonder there is so many icy moons in orbit around the sun. I'll guess other stars have as much. as old sol!

Orin

[bystander]

The Colors of IC 1795

... The nebula's colors were created by adopting the Hubble false-color palette for mapping narrow emission from oxygen, hydrogen, and sulfur atoms to blue, green and red colors, ...

I knew about the Hubble pallette, but often wondered why those colors for those emissions. It now makes since, if the graphic here is correct. Ionized oxygen and hydrogen were assigned the shorter wavelengths of blue and green because their emissions are at a higher energy level than that of sulfur. I thought this might be the case, but never saw it explained or displayed graphically (or at least I never paid attention).

[bystander]

Is this the head of the fetus?

Never mind, I found it, it's below the point of the heart.

I look forward to the December 22, 2012 launch of the Ultrasound Space Telescope.

[apodman]

I look forward to the December 22, 2012 launch of the Ultrasound Space Telescope.

[bystander]

... Ultrasound Space Telescope.

If HUDF in near infrared can see back 13 Ga, how far could ultrasound see?