The Moon presented a fine crescent this morning at 6:36 am. I captured two images before clouds rolled in.
Crescent Moon | 4 Oct 2021
Space
Astro Images | Ring Nebulae
Browsing the Hubble Legacy Archive, I was intrigued by a small ring shaped nebula NGC 6369. It is also known as the Little Ghost. Discovered by 18th century astronomer Sir William Herschel, it lies over 2000 lt-yrs away in the constellation Ophiucus. The sun-like star at the center explosively blasted away its outer layers creating the ring of glowing gases. The star radiates strongly in ultraviolet causing the glow of the nebula. The blast also reduced the star to a white dwarf. For this color image, I combined three blue, green, and red filtered grey-scale Hubble images. The colors illustrate the presence of ionized oxygen, hydrogen, and nitrogen atoms.
Fellow amateur astronomer Roger captured an image of his own recently of a different ring-shaped nebula NGC 7293 in his southern hemisphere sky. It is published here in his blog Cosmic Focus.
Astronomy fans are likely familiar with Messier 57 high in the summer sky of the northern hemisphere. It is another fine example of a ring nebula. Follow the link for a beautiful image and description.
Astro Images | Dust Lanes
Barred spiral galaxy NGC 5746 sits 95 million light years away. Three Hubble greyscale images filtered in red, green, and blue were combined to make my color rendition.
Galilean Moon Events | 15 Aug 2021
The four largest moons of Jupiter are Io, Europa, Ganymede, and Callisto. First seen by Galileo Galilei in December 1609 or January 1610, he described them as satellites in orbit of Jupiter in March 1610. They are easily seen near the planet using a simple telescope or a steadied pair of binoculars. They are currently well placed with Jupiter in the evening sky to the southeast soon after sunset.
Imagine being high above Jupiter looking down at the planet and the four moons. Desktop planetarium software is very helpful here. In this view, Jupiter is centered. The Sun is far to the left off-screen. The moons are labeled in each of their orbits. The fastest is Io closest to Jupiter. Callisto is the slowest. Three of the moon have shadow lines drawn in orange. Play the video and watch their movements. The shadows cast by each of those three moons are intercepted by Jupiter. The software speeded up the rate many times.
What would this event look like for viewers on Earth? Earth would be located far off-screen to the left toward the Sun. Could we see the shadows cast by the moons upon the cloud tops of Jupiter? Again, software can simulate the view accurately. The answer is yes. Earthlings with powerful amateur telescopes are capable of seeing the shadows.
Play the video and watch for several things in this simulation. The first is Callisto casting its shadow on Jupiter. Over the course of several hours, it moves across the entire face of the planet. Next, Ganymede and Europa approach from the left. At 24 sec in the video, both of their shadows are cast. Also, Callisto’s shadow moves off the planet and the moon Io disappears into the shadow of Jupiter just off the right limb of the planet.
Watch at the 30 sec time how Europa is occulted by Ganymede. Both shadows are still visible but they become one briefly at the 32 sec mark. Finally, at 38 sec, both moons and their shadows are off to the right. Did you notice how Io emerged to the left of Jupiter in the distance? You might need to view both of these videos a few times.
On 15 August 2021, the moons were actually positioned as in my simulation above for viewers in the western Pacific region. Christopher Go of Cebu City, Philippines, captured images that night. He was fortunate to enjoy clear sky conditions for the duration of these events. His images are posted on his site. Scroll down his page until you reach August 15, 2021. The Astronomy Picture of the Day APOD highlighted his work.
Astro Images | Two Galaxy Views
There are billions of billions of galaxies in the known universe. They are oriented in countless different ways. A small fraction show their full face toward Earth, while some show an edge-on view. This first example is a nearly face-on view of NGC 4414. Imaged by the Hubble Telescope in 1995, it lies about 60 million lt-yr from Earth. Only about half of the galaxy fit into the detector of Hubble due to its large size.
Three red, green, and blue filtered greyscale images were used to make my color version of this galaxy. The center region is densely populated with older yellow and red stars. This is typical of spiral galaxies. The outer regions are less populated and include younger blue stars. The galaxy has a lot of dust mixed into the spiral arms as evidenced by the dark clouds and bands in silhouette against the bright star glow.
This next galaxy is a nearly perfect edge-on view of NGC 4013. The very bright light source at the heart of this galaxy is actually a star in the foreground much closer than the galaxy. It is part of our Milky Way galaxy and just happens to be in alignment. NGC 4013 is about 55 million lt-yr away in the direction of Ursa Major, the Big Dipper. If we could see it face-on, it would have a spiral shape similar to NGC 4414 above. What stands out clearly in this edge-on view is the dark band of dust cutting across the width of the galaxy. A few blue stars show in the upper right. They are in an outer band and less obscured by the dust.
