My Astrophoto Of The Day
October 18, 2010 at 11:48 pm
(This post was last modified: October 18, 2010 at 11:50 pm by orogenicman.)
![[Image: M20d-1.jpg]](https://images.weserv.nl/?url=i132.photobucket.com%2Falbums%2Fq9%2Fjryates%2FM20d-1.jpg)
Messier 20 (The Trifid Nebula), in Sagittarius
This is a stack of 6 three-minute exposures and
1 two-minute exposures for a total of 20
minutes of exposure, dark subtracted, ISO 800, processed
with Adobe Photoshop CS3 Extended, taken on July 3, 2010
at Taylorsville Lake, Kentucky
1 two-minute exposures for a total of 20
minutes of exposure, dark subtracted, ISO 800, processed
with Adobe Photoshop CS3 Extended, taken on July 3, 2010
at Taylorsville Lake, Kentucky
Equipment:
Modified 200 mm f5 Konus Newtonian with Baader Coma corrector
Hutech Modified Canon T1i DSLR
Orion Shorty Autoguide scope with Starshooter autoguider
Losmandy G-11 Gemini Go To mount with Losmandy Heavy duty tripod
From Wikipedia:
Messier 20 is an H II region located in Sagittarius. Its name means 'divided into three lobes'. The object is an unusual combination of an open cluster of stars, an emission nebula (the lower, red portion), a reflection nebula (the upper, blue portion) and a dark nebula (the apparent 'gaps' within the emission nebula that cause the trifid appearance; these are also designated Barnard 85). Viewed through a small telescope, the Trifid Nebula is a bright and colorful object, and is thus a perennial favorite of amateur astronomers.
The Trifid Nebula was the subject of an investigation by astronomers using the Hubble Space Telescope in 1997, using filters that isolate emission from hydrogen atoms, ionized sulfur atoms, and doubly ionized oxygen atoms. The images were combined into a false-color composite picture to suggest how the nebula might look to the eye.
The close-up images show a dense cloud of dust and gas, which is a stellar nursery full of embryonic stars. This cloud is about 8 light years away from the nebula's central star. A stellar jet protrudes from the head of the cloud and is about 0.75 light-years long. The jet's source is a young stellar object deep within the cloud. Jets are the exhaust gasses of star formation. Radiation from the nebula's central star makes the jet glow.
The images also showed a finger-like stalk to the right of the jet. It points from the head of the dense cloud directly toward the star that powers the Trifid nebula. This stalk is a prominent example of an evaporating gaseous globules, or 'EGGs'. The stalk has survived because its tip is a knot of gas that is dense enough to resist being eaten away by the powerful radiation from the star.
In January, 2005, NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope discovered 30 embryonic stars and 120 newborn stars not seen in visible light images.
'The difference between a Miracle and a Fact is exactly the difference between a mermaid and seal. It could not be expressed better.'
-- Samuel "Mark Twain" Clemens
"I think that in the discussion of natural problems we ought to begin not with the scriptures, but with experiments, demonstrations, and observations".
- Galileo Galilei (1564-1642)
"In short, Meyer has shown that his first disastrous book was not a fluke: he is capable of going into any field in which he has no training or research experience and botching it just as badly as he did molecular biology. As I've written before, if you are a complete amateur and don't understand a subject, don't demonstrate the Dunning-Kruger effect by writing a book about it and proving your ignorance to everyone else! "
- Dr. Donald Prothero
-- Samuel "Mark Twain" Clemens
"I think that in the discussion of natural problems we ought to begin not with the scriptures, but with experiments, demonstrations, and observations".
- Galileo Galilei (1564-1642)
"In short, Meyer has shown that his first disastrous book was not a fluke: he is capable of going into any field in which he has no training or research experience and botching it just as badly as he did molecular biology. As I've written before, if you are a complete amateur and don't understand a subject, don't demonstrate the Dunning-Kruger effect by writing a book about it and proving your ignorance to everyone else! "
- Dr. Donald Prothero
