APOD: The Great Nebula in Carina (2022 Apr 25)

[APOD Robot]

The Great Nebula in Carina

Explanation: In one of the brightest parts of Milky Way lies a nebula where some of the oddest things occur. NGC 3372, known as the Great Nebula in Carina, is home to massive stars and changing nebulas. The Keyhole Nebula (NGC 3324), the bright structure just below the image center, houses several of these massive stars. The entire Carina Nebula, captured here, spans over 300 light years and lies about 7,500 light-years away in the constellation of Carina. Eta Carinae, the most energetic star in the nebula, was one of the brightest stars in the sky in the 1830s, but then faded dramatically. While Eta Carinae itself maybe on the verge of a supernova explosion, X-ray images indicate that much of the Great Nebula in Carina has been a veritable supernova factory.

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[Ann]

We may compare Ignacio Javier Diaz Bobillo's portrait of the great Carina Nebula with a portrait of more or less the same (but not so wide) region by Wolfgang Promper.

The Great Carina Nebula. Image: Ignacio Javier Diaz Bobillo.

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The Great Carina Nebula. Image: Wolfgang Promper.

The Carina Nebula is the true "Trifid Nebula" in the sky. M20, move over!

Ann

[orin stepanek]

https://www.intermountainpet.com/hs-fs/ ... -their-hea
Three dogs a looking! At one silvery star!

Was once; one of brightest stars in the sky!

[AVAO]

The Keyhole Nebula (NGC 3324), the bright structure just below the image center, houses several of these massive stars.

Nice HST picture.

Credit:ESA/Hubble

...Unfortunately, the Keyhole Nebula has nothing to do with NGC 3324
https://www.eso.org/public/images/eso1207a/

"Located in the Southern Hemisphere, NGC 3324 is at the northwest corner of the Carina Nebula (NGC 3372), home of the Keyhole Nebula and the active, outbursting star Eta Carinae. The entire Carina Nebula complex is located at a distance of roughly 7,200 light-years, and lies in the constellation Carina."
https://hubblesite.org/contents/media/i ... Image.html

Unfortunately there are a lot of websites, that quote the wrong text of the NASA page...

[johnnydeep]

Another painful attempt to map text object to image objects on my part. I suspect I failed. And after AVAO's post, I have no idea where NGC 3324 is in this APOD. How wrong am I?

Eta Carinae and Keyhole Nebula?

PA - based on the link to NGC 3324 that AVAO posted, it sure looks a lot like the profile of that famous woman with a Spanish sounding name that I can't remember:

Click to view full size image

[Fred the Cat]

Another painful attempt to map text object to image objects on my part. I suspect I failed. And after AVAO's post, I have no idea where NGC 3324 is in this APOD. How wrong am I?

eta carina and keyhole nebula.png

PA - based on the link to NGC 3324 that AVAO posted, it sure looks a lot like the profile of that famous woman with a Spanish sounding name that I can't remember:

Click to view full size image

Gabriela Mistral?

[bystander]

Another painful attempt to map text object to image objects on my part. I suspect I failed. And after AVAO's post, I have no idea where NGC 3324 is in this APOD. How wrong am I?

eta carina and keyhole nebula.png

PA - based on the link to NGC 3324 that AVAO posted, it sure looks a lot like the profile of that famous woman with a Spanish sounding name that I can't remember:

https://cdn.eso.org/images/screen/eso1207a.jpg

...
The Keyhole Nebula (NGC 3324), ...

The Keyhole Nebula is a dark nebulosity superimposed on the brightest part of the Carina Nebul

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Keyhole Nebula

The Keyhole, or Keyhole Nebula, is a small dark cloud of cold molecules and dust within the Carina Nebula, containing bright filaments of hot, fluorescing gas, silhouetted against the much brighter background nebula. ...

... The Keyhole does not have its own NGC designation. It is sometimes erroneously called NGC 3324, but that catalogue designation refers to a reflection and emission nebula just northwest of the Carina Nebula (or to its embedded star cluster).
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Annotated map of part of the Carina Nebula showing the location of various objects in the nebula. This view combines multiple ground and Hubble observatory images in a 50-light-year wide (15 pc) view. Credit: NASA, ESA, Z. Levay (STScI)

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[Ann]

Another painful attempt to map text object to image objects on my part. I suspect I failed. And after AVAO's post, I have no idea where NGC 3324 is in this APOD. How wrong am I?


eta carina and keyhole nebula.png


PA - based on the link to NGC 3324 that AVAO posted, it sure looks a lot like the profile of that famous woman with a Spanish sounding name that I can't remember:

Click to view full size image

The Great Nebula in Carina. Image Credit & Copyright: Ignacio Javier Diaz Bobillo

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Here you are, Johnny. NGC 3324 is in the upper left corner of today's APOD. "She" is also known as the Gabriela Mistral Nebula.

Note that the profile of Gabriela Mistral is "looking to the right" in the image that you posted, but her nebular likeness is "looking up" in the APOD.

Here's Gabriela!

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Ann

[markb212]

To me, the main part of the picture nebula looks like a person, a bit ghostly, with a round head and two dark eyes, head above a narrow torso, right arm outstretched, left arm tucked close in, possibly right leg bent up. And in the upper right corner I see the head of a bearded man in profile with prominent cheek bones a pug nose, and a massive head of red hair. He's looking down to the left, directly at the head of the other person (or ghost).

[johnnydeep]

Thanks guys. So I did manage to get my Eta Carinae and Keyhole Nebula labeled correctly, though I still do find it difficult to orient myself among all the various image resolutions, scales, wavelenght filters, orientations, and sometimes even right or left reflections!

Eta Carinae and Keyhole Nebula

[johnnydeep]

To me, the main part of the picture nebula looks like a person, a bit ghostly, with a round head and two dark eyes, head above a narrow torso, right arm outstretched, left arm tucked close in, possibly right leg bent up. And in the upper right corner I see the head of a bearded man in profile with prominent cheek bones a pug nose, and a massive head of red hair. He's looking down to the left, directly at the head of the other person (or ghost).

I'll give you the bearded man - pretty good likeness to Abraham Lincoln if you ask me!

Abe Lincoln in Carinae

...but your ghostly man is less convincing. Perhaps a "grayling" alien of some sort.

Click to view full size image

[AVAO]

Here you are, Johnny. NGC 3324 is in the upper left corner of today's APOD.

Ann

Thank's Ann. Now it is clear to me how NGC 3324 is located spatially.

"Located in the Southern Hemisphere, NGC 3324 is at the northwest corner of the Carina Nebula (NGC 3372), home of the Keyhole Nebula and the active, outbursting star Eta Carinae."

Unfortunately there are a lot of websites, that quote the wrong text of the NASA page...[/size]

In this case, the text on the NASA website is not wrong, but simply misleading. NGC 3372 is the home of the Keyhole Nebula and the active, outbursting star Eta Carinae, not NGC 3324. However, the text in the APOD should be adjusted in the future...