Explanation: Framing a bright emission region this telescopic view looks out along the plane of our Milky Way Galaxy toward the nebula rich constellation Cygnus the Swan. Popularly called the Tulip Nebula the glowing cloud of interstellar gas and dust is also found in the 1959 catalog by astronomer Stewart Sharpless as Sh2-101. About 8,000 light-years distant the nebula is understandably not the only cosmic cloud to evoke the imagery of flowers. The complex and beautiful nebula is shown here in a composite image that maps emission from ionized sulfur, hydrogen, and oxygen atoms into red, green, and blue colors. Ultraviolet radiation from young, energetic O star HDE 227018 ionizes the atoms and powers the emission from the Tulip Nebula. HDE 227018, is the bright star very near the blue arc at image center.
Must be too late at night. I don't see any swan or tulip.
Re: APOD: The Tulip in the Swan (2012 Jul 26)
Posted: Thu Jul 26, 2012 5:22 am
by Boomer12k
Is that the BAT SIGNAL TOP CENTER SHADOW????
do do do do do do do do...BATMAN....
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Re: APOD: The Tulip in the Swan (2012 Jul 26)
Posted: Thu Jul 26, 2012 5:24 am
by Boomer12k
Beyond wrote:Must be too late at night. I don't see any swan or tulip.
It is in the constellation Cygnus...the Swan...and if you tilt your head to the left, and look at it diagonally, with a little imagination...it can look like a tulip.....I say a CLAW...but, hey a tulip works...
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Re: APOD: The Tulip in the Swan (2012 Jul 26)
Posted: Thu Jul 26, 2012 5:36 am
by bystander
It looks more like a tulip in broadband RGB than it does in narrowband SII, Hα, OIII Hubble palette.
Re: APOD: The Tulip in the Swan (2012 Jul 26)
Posted: Thu Jul 26, 2012 7:03 am
by Ann
An admirable aspect of this image is the very fine star colors, which look perfectly "RGB" rather than "mapped".
It is extremely obvioius from Michael Joner, David Laney and Robert Gendler's image that HDE 227018 is the ionizing source of this nebula. The blue arc to the left of this star is mapped as blue because it represents the most highly ionized gas of this nebula, and the fact that it shapes itself into an arc around HDE 227018 proves that the gas and the star are intimately associated.
Fascinatingly, my software says that the two bright red stars seen to the lower right and upper right of HDE 227018 are probably as far away from us as HDE 227018. Possibly, they too might be inside the nebula. If so, they must be intrinsically very bright, and they must also be older than HDE 227018. If they, too, are products of the star formation of the Tulip Nebula, then HDE 227018 would represent the second wave of star formation in this nebula.
But I don't think so. There is no sign of a cluster in the Tulip Nebula, and that suggests that HDE 227018 itself was not born inside the nebula. (Any star formation that actually produces an O star ought to produce a number of smaller stars at the same time.)
My software says that HDE 227018 seems to move through space quite speedily. It might therefore possibly be a runaway star. If so, it has left its "birth cluster" far behind, which is why we don't see it. The blue arc to the left of it in today's APOD might therefore be a bow shock, showing us which way HDE 227018 moves.
And the two bright red stars in the image may well be as far away as HDE 227018, and they may even be physically rather close to it, but they are in all probability quite unrelated to it.
Ann
Re: APOD: The Tulip in the Swan (2012 Jul 26)
Posted: Thu Jul 26, 2012 10:17 am
by starsurfer
Ann wrote:An admirable aspect of this image is the very fine star colors, which look perfectly "RGB" rather than "mapped".
It is extremely obvioius from Michael Joner, David Laney and Robert Gendler's image that HDE 227018 is the ionizing source of this nebula. The blue arc to the left of this star is mapped as blue because it represents the most highly ionized gas of this nebula, and the fact that it shapes itself into an arc around HDE 227018 proves that the gas and the star are intimately associated.
Fascinatingly, my software says that the two bright red stars seen to the lower right and upper right of HDE 227018 are probably as far away from us as HDE 227018. Possibly, they too might be inside the nebula. If so, they must be intrinsically very bright, and they must also be older than HDE 227018. If they, too, are products of the star formation of the Tulip Nebula, then HDE 227018 would represent the second wave of star formation in this nebula.
But I don't think so. There is no sign of a cluster in the Tulip Nebula, and that suggests that HDE 227018 itself was not born inside the nebula. (Any star formation that actually produces an O star ought to produce a number of smaller stars at the same time.)
My software says that HDE 227018 seems to move through space quite speedily. It might therefore possibly be a runaway star. If so, it has left its "birth cluster" far behind, which is why we don't see it. The blue arc to the left of it in today's APOD might therefore be a bow shock, showing us which way HDE 227018 moves.
And the two bright red stars in the image may well be as far away as HDE 227018, and they may even be physically rather close to it, but they are in all probability quite unrelated to it.
Ann
I think you're right about HD 227018 being a runaway star and the arc being a bow shock. Strangely, there is a massive lack of scientific literature on this star, so I don't know for sure. The arc is bright in OIII, which is a high excitation line, it can be seen beautifully near the top left corner of this image by Don Goldman of the black hole jet powered bow shock nebula around Cygnus X-1: http://dg-imaging.astrodon.com/gallery/ ... ?imgID=254
Re: APOD: The Tulip in the Swan (2012 Jul 26)
Posted: Thu Jul 26, 2012 11:03 am
by neufer
Click to play embedded YouTube video.
Re: APOD: The Tulip in the Swan (2012 Jul 26)
Posted: Thu Jul 26, 2012 4:16 pm
by NoelC
Simply beautiful, with rich, vibrant color - and not oversharpened!
-Noel
Re: APOD: The Tulip in the Swan (2012 Jul 26)
Posted: Thu Jul 26, 2012 4:18 pm
by Hobo Kin
This pic seems kind of fuzzy - especially when compared to the pics in the links of the Iris, Rosette and 'Ice Cream' nebulae. It is pretty though.
Re: APOD: The Tulip in the Swan (2012 Jul 26)
Posted: Fri Jul 27, 2012 12:19 am
by saturno2
I agree 100% with the comment by Neufer
Re: APOD: The Tulip in the Swan (2012 Jul 26)
Posted: Sun Jul 29, 2012 9:22 am
by rghoeing@buffalo.edu
Absolutely beautiful
Re: APOD: The Tulip in the Swan (2012 Jul 26)
Posted: Wed Aug 15, 2012 7:45 am
by arecker
Hello,
i think the image has to be swapped from left to right. It seems to be mirrored.
I like these beautiful colours.
Regards,
Antonius
Re: APOD: The Tulip in the Swan (2012 Jul 26)
Posted: Wed Aug 15, 2012 10:05 am
by Case
arecker wrote:i think the image has to be swapped from left to right. It seems to be mirrored.
This APOD view may be captured as-is, mirrored only by the telescope’s optical systems (not sure, but it could be), but a more conventional view (north is up, west is right) would indeed be the mirror of this image. Here is the nebula from the DSS2 All Sky Survey, to compare to: