For Those Astronomically Inclined...

[corydoras]

Brilliant Bob, thanks for fixing the link

[corydoras]

NASA Image of the day.

 

Lonely Galaxy

 

Astronomers have long puzzled over why a small, nearby, isolated galaxy is pumping out new stars faster than any galaxy in our local neighborhood.

 

Now NASA's Hubble Space Telescope has helped astronomers solve the mystery of the loner starburst galaxy, called NGC 1569, by showing that it is one and a half times farther away than astronomers thought.

 

The extra distance places the galaxy in the middle of a group of about 10 galaxies centered on the spiral galaxy IC 342. Gravitational interactions among the group's galaxies may be compressing gas in NGC 1569 and igniting the star-birthing frenzy.

 

The farther distance not only means that the galaxy is intrinsically brighter, but also that it is producing stars two times faster than first thought. The galaxy is forming stars at a rate more than 100 times higher than in the Milky Way. This high star-formation rate has been almost continuous for the past 100 million years.

 

Discovered by William Herschel in 1788, NGC 1569 is home to three of the most massive star clusters ever discovered in the local universe. Each cluster contains more than a million stars.

 

Image Credit: NASA, ESA, the Hubble Heritage Team (STScI/AURA), and A. Aloisi (STScI/ESA)

Edited January 5, 2009 by corydoras

[Bobj]

Bugga!! It's 11.9 mag, which means I can only see it on moonless night....And it doesn't look quite like, just a minute greyish blur

[corydoras]

I know it makes you wonder how old timers like Herschel ever found these things. I guess the had almost zero light pollution but even so given the optics that they had his eyesight must have been a lot better than mine.

[corydoras]

The Pope has a nice light bucket.

 

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/7808878.stm

 

I wonder if he believes that the universe is only 6,000 years old?

[Leon Roskilly]

Big Bright Moon this weekend

 

see: http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn1639...f-the-year.html

[corydoras]

I meant to post that. Yes the moon is at perigee this weekend.

[Bobj]

Got this from my monthly astro magazine, Mars:

 

http://themis.asu.edu/

 

And this:

 

http://hla.stsci.edu/

Edited February 3, 2009 by Bobj

[Guest Brumagem Phil]

Just a quick one fellahs.....just been out to the car and the halo around the moon here in hunstanton is mega clear and massive! If you said the average size of a halo around the moon is the size of a tennis ball, this was the size of a basketball! Very impressive.

[corydoras]

I stumbled upon this image whilst surfing around in the NASA Image Exchange (NIX). It is a composite image of the Sombrero Galaxy (M104), composed of a visual spectrum from the Hubble Space Telescope and an infra-red image from the Spitzer Space Telescope.

 

 

Image courtesy of NASA

Edited February 26, 2009 by corydoras