Starship Asterisk*

Dark Nebulas across Taurus

Explanation: Sometimes even the dark dust of interstellar space has a serene beauty. One such place occurs toward the constellation of Taurus. The filaments featured here can be found on the sky between the Pleiades star cluster and the California Nebula. This dust is not known not for its bright glow but for its absorption and opaqueness. Several bright stars are visible with their blue light seen reflecting off the brown dust. Other stars appear unusually red as their light barely peaks through a column of dark dust, with red the color that remains after the blue is scattered away. Yet other stars are behind dust pillars so thick they are not visible here. Although appearing serene, the scene is actually an ongoing loop of tumult and rebirth. This is because massive enough knots of gas and dust will gravitationally collapse to form new stars -- stars that both create new dust in their atmospheres and destroy old dust with their energetic light and winds.

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Very impressive image of what I might otherwise have called an unremarkable little patch of sky. Indeed, I found it a bit tricky to locate and orient on a star map. North is to the right. The APOD is nestled North of the Hyades (off image to the left) and East of the Pleiades (off image below). The California nebula is roughly twice as far off image, to the North-West (below-right).

The brightest stars visible in the APOD are magnitude 4 to 5.

Nitpicker wrote:Very impressive image of what I might otherwise have called an unremarkable little patch of sky. Indeed, I found it a bit tricky to locate and orient on a star map. North is to the right. The APOD is nestled North of the Hyades (off image to the left) and East of the Pleiades (off image below). The California nebula is roughly twice as far off image, to the North-West (below-right).

The brightest stars visible in the APOD are magnitude 4 to 5.

Thanks, Nit.

The image at left shows both the Pleiades and the California Nebula, as well as a lot of dark nebulosity. Is the field imaged in today's APOD visible in the image by Dick Locke?

Ann

Edit: I take it back. Here it is, quite close to Aldebaran in the Hyades, in an image by Rogelio Bernal Andreo which was the APOD of November 17, 2011.

Glancing at today's APOD, my mind conjured up my late dear mother telling me how she never tired of looking at the houses she passed as she rode the bus to our home in Rosedale, Toronto. And I thought how I never tire of looking at APOD even though it's usually just a bunch of gas and dust ... again and again! I wonder about our human minds.

peeks through, not peaks through

heehaw wrote:I wonder about our human minds.

Presumably just a bunch of that gas and dust rearranged.

heehaw wrote:even though it's usually just a bunch of gas and dust ... again and again! I wonder about our human minds.

But it's so pretty and colourful and makes people happy! Also in my case (and many others) the visual spectacle of stardeath brings resplendent joy!

Also this is an incredible vista of part of the Taurus Molecular Ring! I don't even know which way is north up.
More here and here, lots of studies on this region.

Ann wrote:

Nitpicker wrote:Very impressive image of what I might otherwise have called an unremarkable little patch of sky. Indeed, I found it a bit tricky to locate and orient on a star map. North is to the right. The APOD is nestled North of the Hyades (off image to the left) and East of the Pleiades (off image below). The California nebula is roughly twice as far off image, to the North-West (below-right).

The brightest stars visible in the APOD are magnitude 4 to 5.

Click to view full size image

Teh California Nebula and the Pleiades.
Photo: Dick Locke.

Thanks, Nit.

The image at left shows both the Pleiades and the California Nebula, as well as a lot of dark nebulosity. Is the field imaged in today's APOD visible in the image by Dick Locke?

Ann

Edit: I take it back. Here it is, quite close to Aldebaran in the Hyades, in an image by Rogelio Bernal Andreo which was the APOD of November 17, 2011.

Well, the APOD frame is just within the Locke image, but just outside the Andreo image. Here is my approximation of the APOD frame position, using Stellarium, with North up:

todd wrote:peeks through, not peaks through

With a bit of poetic license, one might argue that "peaks" is still acceptable, though only just. (The signal from the star peaks where it peeks.)

The spooky, ghostly, VAMPIRE Nebula.....RRRRRAAAAARRRRRRRRR......hhheeeeehhhhhhhhhh....

:---[===] *

Nitpicker wrote:

Ann wrote:

Nitpicker wrote:Very impressive image of what I might otherwise have called an unremarkable little patch of sky. Indeed, I found it a bit tricky to locate and orient on a star map. North is to the right. The APOD is nestled North of the Hyades (off image to the left) and East of the Pleiades (off image below). The California nebula is roughly twice as far off image, to the North-West (below-right).

The brightest stars visible in the APOD are magnitude 4 to 5.

Click to view full size image

Teh California Nebula and the Pleiades.
Photo: Dick Locke.

Thanks, Nit.

The image at left shows both the Pleiades and the California Nebula, as well as a lot of dark nebulosity. Is the field imaged in today's APOD visible in the image by Dick Locke?

Ann

Edit: I take it back. Here it is, quite close to Aldebaran in the Hyades, in an image by Rogelio Bernal Andreo which was the APOD of November 17, 2011.

Well, the APOD frame is just within the Locke image, but just outside the Andreo image. Here is my approximation of the APOD frame position, using Stellarium, with North up:

location_apod160314.PNG

You got it as right as it could be, as the first link in the explanation http://www.astrobin.com/238942/ identifies three of the stars. The two bright stars half way down the left side is 72Tauri and Upsilon Tauri, while the bright star near lower right corner is Chi Tauri. North is thus toward right.

alcor wrote: You got it as right as it could be, as the first link in the explanation http://www.astrobin.com/238942/ identifies three of the stars. The two bright stars half way down the left side is 72Tauri and Upsilon Tauri, while the bright star near lower right corner is Chi Tauri. North is thus toward right.

Yeah, I would have found it a lot trickier without the link to that page. As it was, I glanced at the sky plot and orientation and still found it difficult. If I had perhaps looked more closely at all the details on that page, it would have been easy.