WISE Image of California Nebula
Posted: Mon May 25, 2020 7:11 am
I wonder if anyone can help me understand this WISE image of NGC1499 please?
This is a low res image screen grabbed from World Wide Telescope but it shows the main features of the nebula.
I'm having trouble understanding how the colour channels have been mapped to the four IR bands surveyed my WISE, which are listed here.
The red area appears to be centred on the star Xi Persei, I read somewhere that it's the bow shock from this massive runaway star. But is the larger green area at a higher or lower temperature, and what is heating it?
Any help would be appreciated.
This is a low res image screen grabbed from World Wide Telescope but it shows the main features of the nebula.
I'm having trouble understanding how the colour channels have been mapped to the four IR bands surveyed my WISE, which are listed here.
I believe band 1 has been mapped to blue as it shows the stars. Band 4 is either green or red, but I'm not sure which one. Finally, I'm not sure if one of the bands has been discarded or combined with another one for the all-sky data set.Band 1 – 3.4 µm (microns) – broad-band sensitivity to stars and galaxies.
Band 2 – 4.6 µm – detect thermal radiation from the internal heat sources of sub-stellar objects like brown dwarfs.
Band 3 – 12 µm – detect thermal radiation from asteroids.
Band 4 – 22 µm – sensitivity to dust in star-forming regions (material with temperatures of 70–100 kelvins).
The red area appears to be centred on the star Xi Persei, I read somewhere that it's the bow shock from this massive runaway star. But is the larger green area at a higher or lower temperature, and what is heating it?
Any help would be appreciated.