Starship Asterisk*

A Dust Angel Nebula

Explanation: The combined light of stars along the Milky Way are reflected by these cosmic dust clouds that soar some 300 light-years or so above the plane of our galaxy. Dubbed the Angel Nebula, the faint apparition is part of an expansive complex of dim and relatively unexplored, diffuse molecular clouds. Commonly found at high galactic latitudes, the dusty galactic cirrus can be traced over large regions toward the North and South Galactic poles. Along with the refection of starlight, studies indicate the dust clouds produce a faint reddish luminescence, as interstellar dust grains convert invisible ultraviolet radiation to visible red light. Also capturing nearby Milky Way stars and an array of distant background galaxies, the deep, wide-field 3x5 degree image spans about 10 Full Moons across planet Earth's sky toward the constellation Ursa Major.

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This is a very fine image, full of color, structure, gas, dust and stars, plus a few galaxies. There is a really nice spiral galaxy near the top of the picture.

I'd like to look up that galaxy, plus a few of the stars. Does anyone know the coordinates of this image?

Ann

Ann wrote:This is a very fine image, full of color, structure, gas, dust and stars, plus a few galaxies. There is a really nice spiral galaxy near the top of the picture.

I'd like to look up that galaxy, plus a few of the stars. Does anyone know the coordinates of this image?

The image is about 3° x 5°, centered on RA 159.402, dec 73.388, in Draco. It's rotated 103° east of north.

Pretty cool ha!

suvraT ittreV wrote:Pretty cool ha!

Yes indeed!

So amazed

the reflection of starlight, I guess.

I've gone to APOD for years and love it. I've learned so much. Like this shot most are very beautiful, interesting and well explained. The angel cloud is pretty cool I'm just kind of surprised that nothing was mentioned (maybe it wasn't really necessary) of the peculiar way the patterns or asterisms of stars in the background were about. I've never posted anything before either, so I feel kind of weird. Like a dumb question. Thanks if anyone has an answer.

ralph wrote:I've gone to APOD for years and love it. I've learned so much. Like this shot most are very beautiful, interesting and well explained. The angel cloud is pretty cool I'm just kind of surprised that nothing was mentioned (maybe it wasn't really necessary) of the peculiar way the patterns or asterisms of stars in the background were about. I've never posted anything before either, so I feel kind of weird. Like a dumb question. Thanks if anyone has an answer.

There are no unusual patterns in the stars. The patterns are all in your brain. Our brains are very good at finding patterns, even where none exist.

Chris Peterson wrote:

Ann wrote:This is a very fine image, full of color, structure, gas, dust and stars, plus a few galaxies. There is a really nice spiral galaxy near the top of the picture.

I'd like to look up that galaxy, plus a few of the stars. Does anyone know the coordinates of this image?

The image is about 3° x 5°, centered on RA 159.402, dec 73.388, in Draco. It's rotated 103° east of north.

Thanks, Chris, I think I found it. The galaxy is NGC 3147, or so I think anyway, and it looks quite lovely. It's red though for a spiral galaxy, with a B-V index of 0.82. There appears to be only moderate amounts of star formation in it. According to Principal Galaxy Catalog, NGC 3147 is huge and brilliant (or at least brilliant), almost five times brighter than the Milky Way. Don't take it from me, though, I'm just quoting Principal Galaxy Catalog.














NGC 3147 reminds me a little of NGC 488, although NGC 3147 is not quite so fantastically elegant. But NGC 488 is a red spiral galaxy too, even redder than NGC 3147, with a B-V index of 0.87. NGC 488 is also large or at least bright, more than three times brighter than the Milky Way (again according to Principal Galaxy Catalog). Maybe these tightly wound, elegant and not so very starforming spiral galaxies are often large and bright. Of course, NGC 3147 is classified as a Seyfert 2 galaxy with an active galactic core, and since we are looking straight into the maw of the black hole and its likely bright torus, the galaxy will appear extra bright.

I was unable to find the full name of jwinman, and I didn't get his signature quite right, either. You can see the full size of jwinman's picture and see his signature here.

Ann

EDIT: The NGC 3147 image is by Adam Block and Alex and Mike Beck.

Chris Peterson wrote:

ralph wrote:I've gone to APOD for years and love it. I've learned so much. Like this shot most are very beautiful, interesting and well explained. The angel cloud is pretty cool I'm just kind of surprised that nothing was mentioned (maybe it wasn't really necessary) of the peculiar way the patterns or asterisms of stars in the background were about. I've never posted anything before either, so I feel kind of weird. Like a dumb question. Thanks if anyone has an answer.

There are no unusual patterns in the stars. The patterns are all in your brain. Our brains are very good at finding patterns, even where none exist.

You mean like the perfect circle traced out by stars in the top 1/5th of the picture, immediately below the word April?

Ann wrote: I was unable to find the full name of jwinman, and I didn't get his signature quite right, either. You can see the full size of jwinman's picture and see his signature here.
Ann

Whois search for jwinman.com:

Registrant Name: JAMES INMAN
Registrant Organization: J. W. INMAN FINE WOODWORKING
Registrant Street: 5 MINER ST.  
Registrant City: WESTERLY
Registrant State/Province: RHODE ISLAND
Registrant Postal Code: 02891
Registrant Country: UNITED STATES

There is another James W Inman of practical astronomical fame:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Inman

An Angelic presentation... lots of blue for Ann...

Thanks Ann for the galaxies...

:---[===] *

WALKER123 wrote:You mean like the perfect circle traced out by stars in the top 1/5th of the picture, immediately below the word April?

Yes: even if the stars seem to say Vote Trump, it is random.

heehaw wrote:

WALKER123 wrote:You mean like the perfect circle traced out by stars in the top 1/5th of the picture, immediately below the word April?

Yes: even if the stars seem to say Vote Trump, it is random.

Every now and then I'll spot a straight line of stars in an image, something like 7 in a row. Enough for me to stop and think, hmmm... maaaaybe... nah.
In reality they are merely forming a pattern from our line of sight. If we could somehow move a few light years left or right, they'd separate.

Well, correction - the "jwinman" image of NGC 3147 is actually a picture by Adam Block and Alex and Mike Beck!!! You can find it here.

I think the orientation of today's APOD is making me slightly confused, because I can't identify any other galaxies in it. However, not far from NGC 3147 I found another, totally fascinating galaxy, NGC 3516. I don't know if you can find it in the APOD, but I'm posting a link to it anyway. WARNING: It is an 857 KB image. The full size image, even larger, is here.

I looked up the colors of this galaxy before I had seen any sort of picture of it, and I noticed there was something strange about it right away. Its colors were unusual for its morphological type. It is classified as an SB0 galaxy, a barred lenticular galaxy. I expect such galaxies to be all red, with no star formation at all. Yet, its U-B index is negative! I had to find a picture of it. Indeed, the galaxy has this large, featureless "body", with a diffuse bar, a diffuse inner bulge and a diffuse outer ring, all made up of old red stars. But there in the middle the galaxy is going crazy! It is "spitting out" what looks like two bright, angry, curved jets of ultraviolet star formation.

The things galaxies are getting up to!!!

Ann

I get the feeling that jwinman's site is a curated gallery rather than a gallery of personal works.

geckzilla wrote:

heehaw wrote:

WALKER123 wrote:You mean like the perfect circle traced out by stars in the top 1/5th of the picture, immediately below the word April?

Yes: even if the stars seem to say Vote Trump, it is random.

Every now and then I'll spot a straight line of stars in an image, something like 7 in a row. Enough for me to stop and think, hmmm... maaaaybe... nah.
In reality they are merely forming a pattern from our line of sight. If we could somehow move a few light years left or right, they'd separate.

I must admit I was surprised when I stumbled across the Collinder 399 asterism ("The Coathanger") in binoculars. I hadn't heard of it before and was disappointed to discover I wasn't the first to notice it . A few years later comet C/2009 P1 was in the same field and there is a nice APOD pic from 2011:

http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap110909.html

Ann,
That is a really interesting elliptical galaxy with the interior dust lanes and apparent blue starbirth within it. There is also an interesting apparent toroidal structure visible