Starship Asterisk*

Clouds of Andromeda

Explanation: What are those red clouds surrounding the Andromeda galaxy? This galaxy, M31, is often imaged by planet Earth-based astronomers. As the nearest large spiral galaxy, it is a familiar sight with dark dust lanes, bright yellowish core, and spiral arms traced by clouds of bright blue stars. A mosaic of well-exposed broad and narrow-band image data, this colorful portrait of our neighboring island universe offers strikingly unfamiliar features though, faint reddish clouds of glowing ionized hydrogen gas in the same wide field of view. These ionized hydrogen clouds surely lie in the foreground of the scene, well within our Milky Way Galaxy. They are likely associated with the pervasive, dusty interstellar cirrus clouds scattered hundreds of light-years above our own galactic plane.

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Interesting...

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A very APOD worthy photo. I wondered though about it being called "The Clouds of Andromeda", when the red clouds that dominate the view aren't part of Andromeda at all. At least this important point is made clear in the Explanation.

Come to think of it though, I'm having a hard time thinking of a better title though, given the desire for titles to be short and attention grabbing...

BDanielMayfield wrote:A very APOD worthy photo. I wondered though about it being called "The Clouds of Andromeda", when the red clouds that dominate the view aren't part of Andromeda at all. At least this important point is made clear in the Explanation.

Come to think of it though, I'm having a hard time thinking of a better title though, given the desire for titles to be short and attention grabbing...

Clouds OF Andromeda is not wrong, it is perfect! The wrong nomenclature is "the Andromeda galaxy:" it should be "the galaxy far beyond Andromeda."

heehaw wrote:

BDanielMayfield wrote:A very APOD worthy photo. I wondered though about it being called "The Clouds of Andromeda", when the red clouds that dominate the view aren't part of Andromeda at all. At least this important point is made clear in the Explanation.

Come to think of it though, I'm having a hard time thinking of a better title though, given the desire for titles to be short and attention grabbing...

Clouds OF Andromeda is not wrong, it is perfect! The wrong nomenclature is "the Andromeda galaxy:" it should be "the galaxy far beyond Andromeda."

Ah, I see your point: An allusion to the constellation rather than the galaxy. (Except the constellation Andromeda wasn't even mentioned in the Explanation!) I wasn't exactly saying the title was wrong however, I was just wondering if it might be wrong. And then I made the point that I couldn't think of anything better, which in itself is a complement. I agree then with your first statement: It's a perfect title.

Bruce

heehaw wrote:

BDanielMayfield wrote:A very APOD worthy photo. I wondered though about it being called "The Clouds of Andromeda", when the red clouds that dominate the view aren't part of Andromeda at all. At least this important point is made clear in the Explanation.

Come to think of it though, I'm having a hard time thinking of a better title though, given the desire for titles to be short and attention grabbing...

Clouds OF Andromeda is not wrong, it is perfect! The wrong nomenclature is "the Andromeda galaxy:" it should be "the galaxy far beyond Andromeda."

Good points, both of you!

I have to wonder how common such thin ionized high-altitude cirrus clouds may be in and around spiral galaxies. Maybe they are quite common? Is it possible that Andromeda herself has such clouds, but we have yet to detect them? (I apologize for ascribing a female gender to the galaxy, but when I talk about M31 as "Andromeda", the name is suggestive. Apropos the nomenclature referring to the galaxy, of course!)

Ann

Errmmm... If I took a picture of the Big Dipper with some thin clouds scudding through the sky above me, would I title the picture The Clouds of The Big Dipper? I've never met-a-phor that stretched that far.

Rob

heehaw wrote:

BDanielMayfield wrote:A very APOD worthy photo. I wondered though about it being called "The Clouds of Andromeda", when the red clouds that dominate the view aren't part of Andromeda at all. At least this important point is made clear in the Explanation.

Come to think of it though, I'm having a hard time thinking of a better title though, given the desire for titles to be short and attention grabbing...

Clouds OF Andromeda is not wrong, it is perfect! The wrong nomenclature is "the Andromeda galaxy:" it should be "the galaxy far beyond Andromeda."

Indeed. In fact, "Andromeda Galaxy" is fairly recent usage. I look back in my old astronomy texts, and it was always called "The Great Galaxy in Andromeda".

The Hα is much more emphasized, compared to last year’s image by Mr Andreo, which was then one of the best available at that angular size and next to a familiar object. What strides we have made!

APOD Robot wrote:These ionized hydrogen clouds surely lie in the foreground of the scene, well within our Milky Way Galaxy. They are likely associated with the pervasive, dusty interstellar cirrus clouds scattered hundreds of light-years above our own galactic plane.

Glowing ionized gas, instead of ‘regular’ reflecting dust (IFN), that is pretty special too, at the low densities I expect there.

rstevenson wrote:Errmmm... If I took a picture of the Big Dipper with some thin clouds scudding through the sky above me, would I title the picture The Clouds of The Big Dipper? I've never met-a-phor that stretched that far.

If I took such a picture and was thinking of a title, I'd probably go with Clouds in the Big Dipper.

Beautiful!

So the main debate here is about the title? No one complained about the "Planets on the Wing" APOD the other day - I surely did not see any planets on that wing!!

Anyway, adding to the discussion, last year, when I produced my image of M31 with these red clouds, I named the image "Clouds of Andromeda", mostly because I've been following that nomenclature with a number of images I've released in the last few years: Clouds of Orion, Taurus, Perseus, Aries... so the name for the M31 image popped up intuitively, not much creative effort on my side. After all, like BDanielMayfield said above earlier, it's a very suitable name despite the clouds aren't really in or even around Andromeda. In any case, APOD titles tend to be on the creative side (I personally like that), with the good stuff later in the text.

Cheers,
Rogelio

Ann wrote:
I have to wonder how common such thin ionized high-altitude cirrus clouds may be in and around spiral galaxies. Maybe they are quite common? Is it possible that Andromeda herself has such clouds, but we have yet to detect them?

• Isn't that exactly what that red spiral is "scattered hundreds of light-years" above Andromeda's arms

RBANDREO wrote:In any case, APOD titles tend to be on the creative side (I personally like that), with the good stuff later in the text.

I agree. But some people seem to dislike any sort of metaphor mixed in with science. Just look what happens anytime an APOD caption uses "Island Universe"!

neufer wrote:

Ann wrote: I have to wonder how common such thin ionized high-altitude cirrus clouds may be in and around spiral galaxies. Maybe they are quite common? Is it possible that Andromeda herself has such clouds, but we have yet to detect them?

• Isn't that exactly what that red spiral is "scattered hundreds of light-years" above Andromeda's arms

Art, I'm quite curious as to what you're talking about, but cannot say that I see it in the image. (Or are you referring to another APOD, or link?)

MarkBour wrote:

neufer wrote:

Ann wrote:
I have to wonder how common such thin ionized high-altitude cirrus clouds may be in and around spiral galaxies. Maybe they are quite common? Is it possible that Andromeda herself has such clouds, but we have yet to detect them?

• Isn't that exactly what that red spiral is "scattered hundreds of light-years" above Andromeda's arms

Art, I'm quite curious as to what you're talking about, but cannot say that I see it in the image.

You don't see a red spiral

M31 is one of my favorite naked eye sights. To get an idea of its 'apparent' distance I'll count off 20 lengths of our own galaxy, getting smaller and smaller with depth perception. Fortunately the 'cirrus' clouds don't get in the way.

RBANDREO wrote:So the main debate here is about the title? No one complained about the "Planets on the Wing" APOD the other day - I surely did not see any planets on that wing!!

Anyway, adding to the discussion, last year, when I produced my image of M31 with these red clouds, I named the image "Clouds of Andromeda", mostly because I've been following that nomenclature with a number of images I've released in the last few years: Clouds of Orion, Taurus, Perseus, Aries... so the name for the M31 image popped up intuitively, not much creative effort on my side. After all, like BDanielMayfield said above earlier, it's a very suitable name despite the clouds aren't really in or even around Andromeda. In any case, APOD titles tend to be on the creative side (I personally like that), with the good stuff later in the text.

Cheers,
Rogelio

It's a perfectly good title Rogelio. I was just having a bit of fun with it. And I find the addition of the Hα clouds, something that most alphaphotographers try to avoid judging from my collection of Andromeda images, is both startlingly fresh and informative. Good one!

Rob

Just an image processing comment. A striking image however the author could have done a better job removing the red hue from all the foreground stars.

neufer wrote:

MarkBour wrote:

neufer wrote:

• Isn't that exactly what that red spiral is "scattered hundreds of light-years" above Andromeda's arms

Art, I'm quite curious as to what you're talking about, but cannot say that I see it in the image.

You don't see a red spiral

Now I'm pretty sure you're having fun with me. So instead of trying to see what you're talking about, I'm trying to remember who said what. But, alas, I get it not.

MarkBour wrote:

neufer wrote:

MarkBour wrote: Art, I'm quite curious as to what you're talking about, but cannot say that I see it in the image.

You don't see a red spiral

Now I'm pretty sure you're having fun with me. So instead of trying to see what you're talking about, I'm trying to remember who said what. But, alas, I get it not.

Try looking for red inside "the great galaxy in Andromeda" instead of around it.

Those are red rings! Not spirals!

Ann

Ann wrote:

heehaw wrote:

BDanielMayfield wrote:A very APOD worthy photo. I wondered though about it being called "The Clouds of Andromeda", when the red clouds that dominate the view aren't part of Andromeda at all. At least this important point is made clear in the Explanation.

Come to think of it though, I'm having a hard time thinking of a better title though, given the desire for titles to be short and attention grabbing...

Clouds OF Andromeda is not wrong, it is perfect! The wrong nomenclature is "the Andromeda galaxy:" it should be "the galaxy far beyond Andromeda."

Good points, both of you!

Thanks Ann.

I have to wonder how common such thin ionized high-altitude cirrus clouds may be in and around spiral galaxies. Maybe they are quite common? Is it possible that Andromeda herself has such clouds, but we have yet to detect them?

I would think that such thin gas clouds riding high above the disks of spirals would have to be extremely common Ann. Think of all the combined stellar winds from bright and more numerous lesser stars of the disk working together to counteract gravitational attraction back toward the disk. They would have to be extremely hard to detect in other galaxies I would think though. But since they are here, and our galaxy is typical ...

Bruce

Ann wrote:Those are red rings! Not spirals!

Ann

I would say they share both appearances Ann. A temporary ringlike shape (ripples from a collision) imposed upon the underlying spiral form. How's that?

Bruce

BDanielMayfield wrote:

Ann wrote:Those are red rings! Not spirals!

Ann

I would say they share both appearances Ann. A temporary ringlike shape (ripples from a collision) imposed upon the underlying spiral form. How's that?

Bruce

Fine with me, Bruce! I just wanted to join in the gentle teasing, started by Art! (Would you know, by the way, that I really tried to give that blue link a red color?

Ann