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There were a number of goodies here. I'm impressed.
The cosmic zoo in the Large Magellanic Cloud was interesting, but you had to follow the link to see the whole picture and learn more about the wild beasts in there. There is an annotated image that you can find via the link. Don't miss it.
Similarly, you had to follow the link to see M53 and NGC 5053 together. Both these clusters are globulars, but while M53 is densely populated, NGC 5053 is a globular going bald of its stars. In my old Burnham's Celestial Handbook, the author writes, if I remember correctly, that NGC 5053 looks so different from M53 that for a long time astronomers thought that NGC 5053 must be an open cluster. But its stellar population is the same as the one of M53, its stars are just as metal poor, its turn-off point from the main sequence is at the same location etecetera, so it's a globular all right. You have to wonder if NGC 5053 was born with far fewer stars than M 53 (a distinct possibility) or if it has lost many more of its stars for some reason.
It isn't as if we all haven't seen the Pleiades a million times before (because if you are an easily accessible cosmic beauty which from our vantage point is one of a kind, you tend to get photographed over and over and over, which has happened to the Orion Nebula, too). But this picture was unusually good. Many Pleiades pictures "drown in blue", but here the blue reflection nebula and the blue color of the brightest stars was not allowed to overwhelm the orangish color of some of the fainter stars. Also the resolution was extremely crisp and clear. Note the details in the reflection nebula and the myriad of faint background stars. Well done.
All in all, the Mauna Kea All-sky image must be my favorite. When I first looked at it, it looked like nothing, just a blurry black and white image showing some telescopes against a badly resolved grey scale starless sky. But when you started using the "control panel", pretty amazing things happened, and the image became a color picture which was crisp and clear. Not to mention that you could move around and go on your own personal all-sky tour and examine the constellations. It was irritating that I could identify so few of the constellations, although I did see the Big and the Small Dipper, Cassiopeia, The Summer Triangle, Sagittarius and Scorpius.
So the Mauna Kea image gets my vote, but the pictures were all interesting.
Re: Recent Submissions: 2010 June 1-3
Posted: Wed Jun 02, 2010 3:57 am
by owlice
This video was posted here, but I'm reposting it. it's been lengthened slightly and put on YouTube, so I hope more folks can see it; it's very cool!
Ann, goodies indeed! I thought you'd like the Pleiades pic. Re: not seeing everything in an image, that is dependent on how big your screen is. I could see both M53 and NGC 5053 on this thread on my desktop but not on my (small) laptop. I had a lot of fun with the Mauna Kea image.
I had a good time going through submissions today!
NGC 2207 and IC 2163: Colliding Galaxies in Canis Major http://www.robgendlerastropics.com/NGC2 ... ndler.html
Copyright: Rob Gendler. Mosaic data from the Hubble Legacy Archive; mosaic assembly and processing by Robert Gendler.
It's nice to see Rob Gendler's version of the Hubble image of NGC 2207 and IC 2163, because he has a much better eye for color than the guys at Hubble. And Gendler is generally a master at processing astro-images.
The galaxy pair is interesting. NGC 2207 looks like a loose collection of bright patches that are generally disconnected from each other. IC 2163 is a lot more "coherent". I read someplace that this galaxy is the ultimate "eye galaxy", too. Well, it's shaped much like an eye, you know? Hey, Bystander thinks that the two galaxies look like the two eyes of an owl!
Wow! Ophiuchus and Scorpius are turning into a veritable zoo, and it's not only snakes and scorpions that haunt these constellations! First it was Rogelio Bernal Andreo who showed us the amazing blue horse in this part of the sky, and now John A. Davis has found the most fantastic camel there! Where is the "applause" smilie?
Ann
Re: Recent Submissions: 2010 June 1-3
Posted: Thu Jun 03, 2010 3:31 pm
by RJN
Although I think it is really cool, I am not sure that the Mauna Kea All Sky image, with its nifty built-in pan and zoom ability, can be posted to APOD. For one thing, APOD can't link to the Tezel image site because surely that site won't be able to provide the needed bandwidth. Next, I am not sure what files would need to appear in the APOD directory to keep the pan and zoom abilities active. Last, I worry that a significant percentage of browsers will not be able process the image and so will remain blank. Perhaps I don't understand some key points, though. Any thoughts? - RJN
where an all-sky picture by Laurent Laveder was posted in APOD website and the link to VR-animation of the picture was given in the informative text?
RJN wrote:Although I think it is really cool, I am not sure that the Mauna Kea All Sky image, with its nifty built-in pan and zoom ability, can be posted to APOD. For one thing, APOD can't link to the Tezel image site because surely that site won't be able to provide the needed bandwidth. Next, I am not sure what files would need to appear in the APOD directory to keep the pan and zoom abilities active. Last, I worry that a significant percentage of browsers will not be able process the image and so will remain blank. Perhaps I don't understand some key points, though. Any thoughts? - RJN
As canopia indicated above, the TWAN version downloads much quicker. Perhaps someone there might have some pointers.
Re: Recent Submissions: 2010 June 1-3
Posted: Thu Jun 03, 2010 4:26 pm
by owlice
It's a Flash file. It requires that people have the Adobe Flash player to view the file; this is a pretty common player to have, though some percentage of the viewing public would likely need to upgrade to version 9 of the player.
owlice wrote:It's a Flash file. It requires that people have the Adobe Flash player to view the file; this is a pretty common player to have, though some percentage of the viewing public would likely need to upgrade to version 9 of the player.
Re: Recent Submissions: 2010 June 1-3
Posted: Fri Jun 04, 2010 7:24 pm
by Ann
Since I always insist that the Sun is white, I probably shouldn't like the Sun picture. But I do. There is a wonderful sense of unreality about it. Or maybe this is what the Sun's "avatar" would look like if it was born again as a non-luminous entity in another reality. Here the Sun looks tangible and solid and not even particularly hot, and it has this amazingly textured surface. Honestly, in this guise the Sun looks like a cross between a beach ball and a dog. I keep wanting to pet it as if it was a dog! Also it looks as if this furry Sun-dog was illuminated by its own chromosphere and not by itself!
I love the whitish-blue chromosphere which seems to glow with its own pearly light in this picture. The gas pillar at top left could be a magical creature of some sort living on, or in, the chromosphere.
Here is a painting of an elf girl and a pair of trolls, made by Swedish artist John Bauer:
Isn't that elf girl a little like the white gas pillar of the chromosphere in the Sun picture here?
