Posted on 01/22/2016 10:26:00 PM PST by SunkenCiv
Explanation: The Big Dipper is an easy to recognize, well-known asterism in northern skies, though many see the Plough or Wagon. Famous bright nebulae of the north can also be found along its familiar lines, highlighted in this carefully composed scene with telescopic insets framed in the wider-field skyview. All from Messier's catalog, M101 and M51 are cosmic pinwheel and whirlpool on the left, spiral galaxies far beyond the Milky Way. To the right, M108, a distant edge-on spiral galaxy is seen close to our galaxy's own owl-faced planetary nebula M97. Taken on January 16, the wider-field view seems to include an extra star along the Dipper's handle, though. That's Comet Catalina (C/2013 US10) now sweeping through northern nights.
(Excerpt) Read more at 129.164.179.22 ...
[Credit and Copyright: Lorand Fenyes]
http://129.164.179.22/apod/image/1601/lf_dipper_subt.jpg
http://129.164.179.22/apod/image/1601/lorand_fenyes_dipper_big.jpg
http://www.freerepublic.com/perl/post?id=3387439%2C0
That one was difficult for me to accept as part of the JT canon back at that time, but there are some faves on there, I still don’t take it seriously as a concept album. I’m pretty much that way with 99 percent of concept albums by anyone, other than, y’know, maybe Beethoven. ;’)
The resulting image consisted of 342 separate exposures, with a total exposure time of more than 100 hours, compared with typical Hubble exposures of a few hours. The observed region of sky in Ursa Major [the Big Dipper region] was carefully selected to be as empty as possible so that Hubble would look far beyond the stars of our own Milky Way and out past nearby galaxies.
The results were astonishing! Almost 3000 galaxies were seen in the image [in a speck of sky the size of a grain of sand held at arm's length!].
Scientists analyzed the image statistically and found that the HDF had seen back to the very young Universe where the bulk of the galaxies had not, as yet, had time to form stars. ..."
:’) Thanks ETL.
That’s the one I can almost always see just out my window next to the computer. ;-D
It’s a big popular one, and handy for navigation and such. One of the ideas that’s popped up regarding the Arthurian legends is that Arthur was “the Bear” (somehow, that was his nickname), as Arth (Rth in Welsh) means Bear, and Ursa is Latin for “Bear” (thus, Arth-Ursa), and the later add-on tale of the Knights of the Round Table refers to the circling constellations.
Hey, kids — here’s some nitpicking stupidity:
The Big Dipper is Not a Constellation
http://www.todayifoundout.com/index.php/2012/01/the-big-dipper-is-not-a-constellation/
That double to the lower right of the comet was an eye test for the ancients.
Mizar( larger) and Alcore ( smaller).
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