JamesSavik Posted December 11, 2006 Posted December 11, 2006 If you aren't familiar with the Astronomy Picture of the Day, now would be a real good time to check it out. Todays image, Monday Dec. 11, is one of the best in quite a while. Today's subject is a ghostly nebulea call the Witch-head or IC 2118. If you click on the APOD image, it will load a much higher resolution image. Hello wallpaper! What makes this image special is that not only is the nebulea and star cluster beautiful, in the background you can see all sorts of galaxies: ellipticals, lenticulars and spirals- oh my! The Astronomy Picture of the Day has been going on since ~ 1995 and has a place on many peoples favorites lists. I've gone through them all but hey- I'm nerdy that way.
C James Posted December 11, 2006 Posted December 11, 2006 If you aren't familiar with the Astronomy Picture of the Day, now would be a real good time to check it out. Todays image, Monday Dec. 11, is one of the best in quite a while. Today's subject is a ghostly nebulea call the Witch-head or IC 2118. If you click on the APOD image, it will load a much higher resolution image. Hello wallpaper! What makes this image special is that not only is the nebulea and star cluster beautiful, in the background you can see all sorts of galaxies: ellipticals, lenticulars and spirals- oh my! The Astronomy Picture of the Day has been going on since ~ 1995 and has a place on many peoples favorites lists. I've gone through them all but hey- I'm nerdy that way. Thank you for that link!!!!! I love astronomy photos!
JamesSavik Posted December 12, 2006 Author Posted December 12, 2006 This is a clip from the image in question. I have the galaxies marked. There are two spiral galaxies which are shaped like a whirlpool. Lenticular galaxies are shaped like a lens or football. Ellpitical galaxies range from round to and an ellipse. It's just rare that you'll see all of the main types on one image. The only two left out are irregular galaxies which are about 2% of the surveyed population and always end up irregular because a bigger galaxy ran over it. Low Surface Brightness galaxies are any kind of galaxy with a total luminosity below a certian threshold. LSBs can be of any shape, they are just very hard to see and are best viewed in the infra-red.
Kurt Posted December 12, 2006 Posted December 12, 2006 Wow, that is pretty cool! It is now my background, thanks for sharing!
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