On Monday evening we attended the KIPAC Star Gazing Event sponsored by Stanford U. The Stanford Student Planetarium is opened to the public a few times a year.
FYI there are "better" images from Hubble, etc, but there is nothing like peering into space in person under a clear night. KIPAC sent us a series of pics from the viewing including Planets (Saturn, Neptune, Jupiter), Nebulas and galaxies.
Here is the Dumbbell Nebula, more than 1,200 light-years away.
Spotted by Charles Messier in 1764, Messier 27, also referred to as the Dumbbell Nebula, was the first planetary nebula ever discovered. The term “planetary nebula” is a bit of a misnomer based on the nebula’s round, planet-like appearance when viewed through smaller telescopes. The nebula is the result of an old star that has shed its outer layers in a glowing display of color.
How about another galaxy altogether? The Cigar Galaxy is a mere 12 million light-years from Earth.
M82 or the Cigar galaxy, shines brightly at infrared wavelengths and is remarkable for its star formation activity. The Cigar galaxy experiences gravitational interactions with its galactic neighbor, M81, causing it to have an extraordinarily high rate of star formation — a starburst.
Around the galaxy’s center, young stars are being born 10 times faster than they are inside our entire Milky Way galaxy. Radiation and energetic particles from these newborn stars carve into the surrounding gas, and the resulting galactic wind compresses enough gas to make millions of more stars. The rapid rate of star formation in this galaxy eventually will be self-limiting. When star formation becomes too vigorous, it will consume or destroy the material needed to make more stars. The starburst will then subside, probably in a few tens of millions of years.
My advice? Bring a lunch...
FYI there are "better" images from Hubble, etc, but there is nothing like peering into space in person under a clear night. KIPAC sent us a series of pics from the viewing including Planets (Saturn, Neptune, Jupiter), Nebulas and galaxies.
Here is the Dumbbell Nebula, more than 1,200 light-years away.
Spotted by Charles Messier in 1764, Messier 27, also referred to as the Dumbbell Nebula, was the first planetary nebula ever discovered. The term “planetary nebula” is a bit of a misnomer based on the nebula’s round, planet-like appearance when viewed through smaller telescopes. The nebula is the result of an old star that has shed its outer layers in a glowing display of color.
How about another galaxy altogether? The Cigar Galaxy is a mere 12 million light-years from Earth.
M82 or the Cigar galaxy, shines brightly at infrared wavelengths and is remarkable for its star formation activity. The Cigar galaxy experiences gravitational interactions with its galactic neighbor, M81, causing it to have an extraordinarily high rate of star formation — a starburst.
Around the galaxy’s center, young stars are being born 10 times faster than they are inside our entire Milky Way galaxy. Radiation and energetic particles from these newborn stars carve into the surrounding gas, and the resulting galactic wind compresses enough gas to make millions of more stars. The rapid rate of star formation in this galaxy eventually will be self-limiting. When star formation becomes too vigorous, it will consume or destroy the material needed to make more stars. The starburst will then subside, probably in a few tens of millions of years.
My advice? Bring a lunch...
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