ANU-DSS The Beauty of Cosmos in Sky Surveys: July 2008

Friday, July 25, 2008

Rho Ophiuchi Complex

Gas rich fields on border of Ophiuchus_Scorpius.Brightest star is Antares[Alpha Scorpii] & top left Blue Reflection neb. hosts a triplet of stars.The brightest one among them is Rho Ophiuchi.GCs M4 [12 o'clk of Antares]& tinyNGC 6144[[10o'clk of Antares] are easy catch in small scopes.

Globule in IC 1396

Thursday, July 17, 2008

Dusty Slender in Sculptor

Tuesday, July 15, 2008

Lagoon Nebula

Naked Eye Nebulosity in Saggi MW.Truly stunning OC-GN feast for small scopes.Of course bigger the glass;better is the view.

Friday, July 11, 2008

M 20

Showpiece in Saggi Milky Way.All phases of star formation viz.Dark nebulae,Reddish Emission Neb.& Blue ReflectionNebulae can be seen @ once.

NGC 1512

M 67

4th oldest Open Cluster in our Milky Way.4 Billion years old.

NGC 5128

A Merger of a Barred Spiral with an Elliptical galaxy.2nd brightest Radio source in the sky.

Monday, July 7, 2008

Medusa Nebula

M 78

Sunday, July 6, 2008

Around Orion's Sword

Thursday, July 3, 2008

Embracing Gals

Wednesday, July 2, 2008

Action in Fornax Cluster

This relatively nearby Galaxy cluster contains the cutest barred spiral NGC1365.A pair of mammoth ellipticals NGC 1399 & NGC 1404 rule the cluster dynamics.Note the apeearance of NGC 1427A as a extremely vivid blue smudge.Its due to gravity tug of entire cluster leading to super accelerated rate of star formation.This poor fated Galaxy is rapidly passing through cluster.At this rate of destruction;its all the matter reservoir to create stars will soon burn out.

Deeper & finer HST image of this galaxy is available @
http://hubblesite.org/newscenter/archive/releases/2005/09/image/a/
Chandra X Ray observatory has found hot intra cluster gas in fornax group.More on it @ http://chandra.harvard.edu/press/04_releases/press_090804.html

Below is Annotated B/W Finder chart for identifying bright galaxies.It can be inverted & printed for observation/field use.

Tuesday, July 1, 2008

Thor's Helmet

Running Man Nebula-Vivid

Can u see Running man there?Lower part of frame contains part of M42 & prominent blue stars @ center top are elements of O.C. called NGC 1981

Processing for Colors of Cosmos

The DSS images are 1/1.7/2 arc-sec per pixel which is v.good resolution.But unfortunately they are available in Red,Blue & IR filtered data;essentially appearing monochrome.The Green filter image is not there at all.Thus the images posted here are created by synthesizing Green channel digitally,then merging with R&B plate images.
This technique holds good unless an object[e.g.planetary nebula] emits predominantly in green light leading to deviation from true appearance/features visible in composed image.
Sometimes for heavily reddened objects/unavoidable situations,[e.g.Sirius,IC 10]I've used IR data to fortify the real nature of object leading to kind of IR-Visual images.The range of multiwavelength data is not much.Will be using more surveys soon for that.

ABOUT DSS DATA

The Digitized Sky Surveys were produced at the Space Telescope Science Institute under U.S. Government grant NAG W-2166. The images of these surveys are based on photographic data obtained using the Oschin Schmidt Telescope on Palomar Mountain and the UK Schmidt Telescope. The plates were processed into the present compressed digital form with the permission of these institutions.

The National Geographic Society - Palomar Observatory Sky Atlas (POSS-I) was made by the California Institute of Technology with grants from the National Geographic Society.

The Second Palomar Observatory Sky Survey (POSS-II) was made by the California Institute of Technology with funds from the National Science Foundation, the National Geographic Society, the Sloan Foundation, the Samuel Oschin Foundation, and the Eastman Kodak Corporation.

The Oschin Schmidt Telescope is operated by the California Institute of Technology and Palomar Observatory.

The UK Schmidt Telescope was operated by the Royal Observatory Edinburgh, with funding from the UK Science and Engineering Research Council (later the UK Particle Physics and Astronomy Research Council), until 1988 June, and thereafter by the Anglo-Australian Observatory. The blue plates of the southern Sky Atlas and its Equatorial Extension (together known as the SERC-J), as well as the Equatorial Red (ER), and the Second Epoch [red] Survey (SES) were all taken with the UK Schmidt.

All data are subject to the copyright given in the copyright summary. Copyright information specific to individual plates is provided in the downloaded FITS headers.

Supplemental funding for sky-survey work at the ST ScI is provided by the European Southern Observatory.