Daily Archives: March 28, 2014

Stripping ESO 137-001

heic1404b1920
Image Credit: NASA, ESA, CXC
Spiral galaxy ESO 137-001 hurtles through massive galaxy cluster Abell 3627 some 220 million light years away. The distant galaxy is seen in this colorful Hubble/Chandra composite image through a foreground of the Milky Way’s stars toward the southern constellation Triangulum Australe. As the spiral speeds along at nearly 7 million kilometers per hour, its gas and dust is stripped away when ram pressure with the cluster’s own hot, tenuous intracluster medium overcomes the galaxy’s gravity. Evident in Hubble’s near visible light data, bright star clusters have formed in the stripped material along the short, trailing blue streaks. Chandra’s X-ray data shows off the enormous extent of the heated, stripped gas as diffuse, darker blue trails stretching over 400,000 light-years toward the bottom right. The significant loss of dust and gas will make new star formation difficult for this galaxy. A yellowish elliptical galaxy, lacking in star forming dust and gas, is just to the right of ESO 137-001 in the frame.

NASA APOD 28-mar-2014

Related posts:

  1. Arp 188 and the Tadpole’s Tail 
  2. The Hercules Cluster of Galaxies 
  3. Orion Nebula in Surrounding Dust
  4. M106 Across the Spectrum 

M76: The Little Dumbell Nebula

c5761cede58584815fc742b6ae2cb8e4.1824x0_q100_watermark_watermark_opacity-5_watermark_position-5_watermark_text-Copyright Tim Jardine 2013

The Little Dumbbell Nebula, also known as Messier 76, NGC 650/651, the Barbell Nebula, or the Cork Nebula, is a planetary nebula in the constellation Perseus. It was discovered by Pierre Méchain in 1780 and included in Charles Messier’s catalog of comet-like objects as number 76. It was first recognised as a planetary nebula in 1918 by the astronomer Heber Doust Curtis. However, there is some contention to this claim, as Isaac Roberts in 1891 did suggest that M76 might be similar to the Ring Nebula (M57), being instead as seen from the side view. The structure is now classed as a bipolar planetary nebula (BPNe).

Distance to M76 is currently estimated as 780 parsecs or 2,500 light years.

Imaging telescopes or lenses: Celestron C1100 Edge HD
Imaging cameras: Atik 428EX
Mounts: Sky-Watcher EQ6 Pro
Guiding telescopes or lenses: Celestron C1100 Edge HD
Software: Stark Labs Nebulosity 3.1, PixInsight, PHD, Adobe Photoshop CS5 CS5
Filters: Baader Planetarium L,R,G,B,Ha,Oiii,Sii
Accessories: Celestron OAG, Starlight Xpress Lodestar
Dates: Oct. 1, 2012

Author: Tim Jardine

AstroPhotography of the day by SPONLI

28 March 2014

Related posts:

  1. Little Dumbbell Nebula in Perseus
  2. NGC 6888: the Crescent Nebula
  3. Soul Nebula in Cassiopeia
  4. NGC 6618: the Swan Nebula