Found images: 2017 August

[bystander]

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Have you seen a great image or video somewhere that you think would make a great APOD? Nominate it for APOD! Please post as much information here as you have about the image/video with a link to any source(s) for it you know of here, and the editors will take a look.

When posting the image itself, please do not post anything larger than a thumbnail here; please honor the copyright holder's copyright.

Please keep hotlinked images under 400K.

Thank you!

<< Previously

[starsurfer]

LBN 442
http://afesan.es/Deepspace/slides/LBN%20442.html
Copyright: Antonio Sánchez

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Shapley 3
http://members.pcug.org.au/~stevec/Shap ... 0_RC14.htm
Copyright: Steve Crouch

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NGC 125
http://www.adamblockphotos.com/ngc-125.html
Copyright: Adam Block/Mount Lemmon SkyCenter/University of Arizona
Acknowledgement: CHART32

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NGC 2633-4
https://www.hansonastronomy.com/ngc-2634
Copyright: Mark Hanson

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Tarantula Nebula (NGC 2070)
https://www.eso.org/public/news/eso0650/
Copyright: ESO/R. Fosbury (ST-ECF)

[starsurfer]

M2
http://bf-astro.com/m2/m2.htm
Copyright: Bob Franke

[bystander]

From the Residencia to the Milky Way
ESO Picture of the Week | 2017 Aug 07

[c][attachment=0]potw1732a[1].jpg[/attachment][/c][hr][/hr]

This image captures the route from the Residencia — the guesthouse for visitors to ESO's Paranal Observatory— to the breathtaking heart of the Milky Way, which covers the entire night sky.

The site shown here is Cerro Paranal, home to ESO's Very Large Telescope (VLT), a telescope comprising four 8.2-metre Unit Telescopes. The VLT can also act as an interferometer in the form of the appropriately-named VLT Interferometer, or VLTI, by gathering additional light from four smaller Auxiliary Telescopes, which can be independently moved around and placed in different configurations. One of these Auxiliary Telescopes is shown in this image, gazing at the sky with its dome wide open.

The road from the observatory to the Residencia appears as a shining thread, weaving amongst the rocky outcrops and hills of the desert environment. The yellow glow is caused by dim security lights — the street lighting is kept to a minimum in order to avoid unnecessary light pollution.

[bystander]

Small but Significant
ESA Hubble Picture of the Week | 2017 Aug 07

[img3="Credit: ESA/Hubble & NASA"]https://cdn.spacetelescope.org/archives ... w1732a.jpg[/img3][hr][/hr]

The subject of this NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope image is a dwarf galaxy named NGC 5949. Thanks to its proximity to Earth — it sits at a distance of around 44 million light-years from us, placing it within the Milky Way’s cosmic neighbourhood — NGC 5949 is a perfect target for astronomers to study dwarf galaxies.

With a mass of about a hundredth that of the Milky Way, NGC 5949 is a relatively bulky example of a dwarf galaxy. Its classification as a dwarf is due to its relatively small number of constituent stars, but the galaxy’s loosely-bound spiral arms also place it in the category of barred spirals. This structure is just visible in this image, which shows the galaxy as a bright yet ill-defined pinwheel. Despite its small proportions, NGC 5949’s proximity has meant that its light can be picked up by fairly small telescopes, something that facilitated its discovery by the astronomer William Herschel in 1801.

Astronomers have run into several cosmological quandaries when it comes to dwarf galaxies like NGC 5949. For example, the distribution of dark matter within dwarfs is quite puzzling (the “cuspy halo” problem), and our simulations of the Universe predict that there should be many more dwarf galaxies than we see around us (the “missing satellites” problem).

[Ann]

NGC 2633-4
https://www.hansonastronomy.com/ngc-2634
Copyright: Mark Hanson
NGC2634.jpg

This is a splendid galaxy (and IFN) image. Thanks for posting it, starsurfer, and thanks for producing it, Mark Hanson!

Ann

[starsurfer]

North America Nebula (NGC 7000)
http://astrophotography.aa6g.org/Astrop ... -sx16.html
Copyright: Chuck Vaughn

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Snake Nebula (B72)
http://www.astrosurf.com/ilizaso/orriak ... Q_U16m.htm
Copyright: Iñaki Lizaso

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Flaming Star Nebula (IC 405)
http://www.astrobin.com/276292/
Copyright: Tero Turunen

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NGC 7331 and Stephen's Quintet
http://www.pbase.com/tango33/image/160736472
Copyright: Kfir Simon

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Pacman Nebula (NGC 281)
https://www.flickr.com/photos/manueljas ... 214874123/
Copyright: Manuel Jimenez

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NGC 5844
http://www.chart32.de/index.php/component/k2/item/184
Copyright: CHART32
Processing: Johannes Schedler

Click to view full size image

[starsurfer]

NGC 7793
http://www.billionsandbillions.com/ngc_7793.html
Copyright: Warren Keller/SSRO

Click to view full size image

[bystander]

Lunar Eclipse @ ESO
ESO Picture of the Week | 2017 Aug 14

[img3="Credit: ESO/Petr Horálek"]https://cdn.eso.org/images/screen/potw1733a.jpg[/img3][hr][/hr]

During the early evening of 7 August, a partial lunar eclipse was visible in the sky above the ESO Headquarters in Garching bei München, Germany.

A lunar eclipse occurs when the Earth, Moon and Sun are aligned, and the Earth casts a shadow on the Moon. This time, only a small part of the Moon entered the Earth’s inner shadow, the umbra, but it still made for a stunning view.

While observing from the rooftop of the ESO Headquarters building, ESO Photo Ambassador Petr Horálek captured the eclipse along with spectacular rays from the setting Sun behind him, known as anticrepuscular rays — a union of astronomical and atmospherical phenomena. The Picture of the Week shown here is a compilation of over 50 images of the eclipse, starting from the peak of the eclipse just as the Moon rose above the horizon, to the eclipse’s conclusion when the Moon was high in the sky.

Horálek captured the eclipse near its peak in a second photo. The entire Moon is turned red by its light scattering through the Earth’s atmosphere. Meanwhile, the bottom right part of the full Moon blends into the sky having entered the umbra of the Earth’s shadow.

Europe’s next lunar eclipse will be a total eclipse, visible on 27 July, 2018.

[bystander]

A Distorted Duo
ESA Hubble Picture of the Week | 2017 Aug 14

[img3="Credit: ESA/Hubble & NASA"]https://cdn.spacetelescope.org/archives ... w1733a.jpg[/img3][hr][/hr]

Gravity governs the movements of the cosmos. It draws flocks of galaxies together to form small groups and more massive galaxy clusters, and brings duos so close that they begin to tug at one another. This latter scenario can have extreme consequences, with members of interacting pairs of galaxies often being dramatically distorted, torn apart, or driven to smash into one another, abandoning their former identities and merging to form a single accumulation of gas, dust, and stars.

The subject of this NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope image, IC 1727, is currently interacting with its near neighbour, NGC 672 (which is just out of frame). The pair’s interactions have triggered peculiar and intriguing phenomena within both objects — most noticeably in IC 1727. The galaxy’s structure is visibly twisted and asymmetric, and its bright nucleus has been dragged off-centre.

In interacting galaxies such as these, astronomers often see signs of intense star formation (in episodic flurries known as starbursts) and spot newly-formed star clusters. They are thought to be caused by gravity churning, redistributing, and compacting the gas and dust. In fact, astronomers have analysed the star formation within IC 1727 and NGC 672 and discovered something interesting — observations show that simultaneous bursts of star formation occurred in both galaxies some 20 to 30 and 450 to 750 million years ago. The most likely explanation for this is that the galaxies are indeed an interacting pair, approaching each other every so often and swirling up gas and dust as they pass close by.

[Ann]

The portrait of IC 1727 is a great picture!

However...

Hubble Space Telescope wrote:

The subject of this NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope image, IC 1727, is currently interacting with its near neighbour, NGC 672 (which is just out of frame). The pair’s interactions have triggered peculiar and intriguing phenomena within both objects — most noticeably in IC 1727. The galaxy’s structure is visibly twisted and asymmetric, and its bright nucleus has been dragged off-centre.

It isn't obvious to me that the nucleus of IC 1727 has been dragged off-center, or that IC 1727 has a nucleus in the first place. If it does, the nucleus is very hard to spot.

Click to view full size image

NGC 1313 with a faint nucleus and bright arms.
Photo: ESO, Henri Boffin.

Click to view full size image

The Large Magllanic Cloud, which lacks both a nucleus and bright arms.
But its brightest spot is definitely off-center.
Photo: Eckhard Slawik.

The bright regions of star formation at one end of the galactic bar of IC 1727 don't look much like a nucleus of a galactic center to me. Not all galaxies have a nucleus, certainly not a bright nucleus, particularly not relatively low-mass galaxies. A bright region of star formation doesn't necessarily correspond to a nucleus.

Of course, it is possible that astronomers have used other means to determine that the bright region of star formation at one end of the bar of IC 1727 indeed has the properties of a nucleus.

Click to view full size image

Elongated galaxy Kiso 5639. The bright starforming head may be a nucleus.
Photo: NASA, ESA, and Debra Elmegreen

Finally, let's look at Kiso 5639 whose brilliant head is a lot more off-center that the nucleus(?) of IC 1727.

Ann

[starsurfer]

Sh2-308
http://cosmicphotos.com/gallery/image.p ... lbum_id=11
Copyright: Jason Jennings

Click to view full size image

This nebula is also catalogued as RCW 11.

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M46 and NGC 2438
http://www.pbase.com/strongmanmike2002/m46_and_ngc_2438
Copyright: Michael Sidonio

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NGC 1360, NGC 1398 and NGC 1371
http://www.atacama-photographic-observa ... .php?id=54
Copyright: Thierry Demange, Richard Galli and Thomas Petit

NGC 1360 is the planetary nebula on the right, NGC 1398 is the galaxy at the bottom and NGC 1371 is the galaxy at the top.

[starsurfer]

Markarian's Chain
http://www.cxielo.ch/gallery/f/markarian
Copyright: Martin Rusterholz

[Elias Chasiotis]

The ring of fire.
Copyright: Eugen kamenew
(photos and description of the photographer in the following links).
https://www.flickr.com/photos/65100187@N05/8767390453/
https://www.flickr.com/photos/65100187@N05/8766633833/