Astronomy Pic of the Day

Horsehead Nebula

The Horsehead Nebula, embedded in the vast and complex Orion Nebula, is seen in this representative-color image from the Canada-France-Hawaii Telescope in Hawaii. The dark molecular cloud, roughly 1,500 light years distant, is visible only because its obscuring dust is silhouetted against another, brighter nebula. The prominent horse head portion of the nebula is really just part of a larger cloud of dust which can be seen extending toward the bottom of the picture. Credit and Copyright: Jean-Charles Cuillandre (CFHT), Hawaiian Starlight, CFHT

Astronomy Pic of the Day

Messier 16: The Eagle Nebula -  From the Hubble 20th Anniversary collection

Eerie, dramatic pictures from the Hubble telescope show newborn stars emerging from “eggs” — not the barnyard variety — but rather, dense, compact pockets of interstellar gas called evaporating gaseous globules (EGGs). Hubble found the “EGGs,” appropriately enough, in the Eagle nebula, a nearby star-forming region 7,000 light-years from Earth in the constellation Serpens.

Astronomy Pic of the Day

Messier 45 – The Pleiades

The Pleiades, or Seven Sisters (Messier object 45), is an open star cluster containing middle-aged hot B-type stars located in the constellation of Taurus. It is among the nearest star clusters to Earth and is the cluster most obvious to the naked eye in the night sky.

Always one of my favorite objects to look for on a clear night anywhere.  The Pleiades were used as a sight test, as being able to see all 7 of the brighter stars is an indication of good eyes.  Mostly, they seem to be a sign of good seeing

Astronomy Picture of the Day

NGC6543: The Cat’s Eye Nebula – Hubble Image (NASA, AURA, STScI)

NGC6543 is one of my favorite Planetary Nebula.  So called because early telescopes could not resolve them well enough and they seemed to resemble a planet, these nebulae are actually the ejecta from the explosion of the outer layers of a star.  You can see the remaining star in the center of this image, and is called a “white dwarf” because of it’s coloration and size.  The white dwarf will over time cool down and stop emitting, as it is only a remnant of the pre-cursor star.  As the star dies, so too the nebula will stop glowing, so a planetary nebula is a relatively short-lived phenomena as astronomical times go!

I did a study of the spectra of this nebula as an undergrad, and found it to have a highest metallicity of any planetary then known  [Metal = anything heavier than hydrogen in astronomer-speak ].

Astronomy Pic of the Day

The Hubble Deep Field (HDF) is an image of a small region in the constellation Ursa Major, constructed from a series of observations by the Hubble Space Telescope. It covers an area 2.5 arcminutes across, two parts in a million of the whole sky, which is equivalent in angular size to a 65 mm tennis ball at a distance of 100 metres. The image was assembled from 342 separate exposures taken with the Space Telescope’s Wide Field and Planetary Camera 2 over ten consecutive days between December 18 and December 28, 1995.

I have a print of this image, signed by my co-workers from when I worked at Space Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore.  The amazing array of galaxies really gives you a true sense of how insignificant we are.  I have heard that you can find galaxies shaped like every letter of the alphabet in this picture (I doubt it; the physics involved would be, shall we say, “complicated”).

Astronomy Pic of the Day

Messier 13:The Great Globular Cluster in Hercules
Image Credit & Copyright: Marco Burali, Tiziano Capecchi, Marco Mancini (Osservatorio MTM)

I like this cluster because in a dark sky it is almost a naked eye object.  You can see a fuzzy patch in the constellation Hercules that even with binoculars can be resolved into pin points of light.

Why tomswifty?

I get the question occasionally, “Why Tom Swifty”?

Well, Tom Swift was a character in juvenile fiction that was a great inventor.  He always was inventing something new.  The books were released in the 1910s-1930s and then in the 50′s was resurrected as Tom Swift Jr., who was supposed to be the original Tom Swift’s son, who also invented.

The books were written by staff writers at the publishing company under the pseudonym Victor Appleton.  The prose in the books is sometimes hilarious as such:

“I know who turned off the lights,” Tom hinted darkly.

Examples such as this gave rise to a series of puns call “Tom Swifties” where the quote and the description combined for a moan-causing pun:

“I’m wearing my wedding ring,” said Tom with abandon.
“I caught two hares,” said Tom abrasively.
“The number of people not attending class today really bothers me,” said the professor absent-mindedly.

I collect Tom Swift books as a hobby, so being a “Tom Swifty” suits me fine