Astronomy Picture of the Day - A Galaxy Beyond Stars, Gas, Dust

APOD.NASA.gov ^ | 19 Oct, 2022 | Image Credit & Copyright: Howard Trottier; Text: Emily Rice

[MtnClimber]

Explanation: Do we dare believe our eyes? When we look at images of space, we often wonder whether they are "real", and just as often the best answer varies. In this case, the scene appears much as our eyes would see it, because it was obtained using RGB (Red, Green, Blue) filters like the cone cells in our eyes, except collecting light for 19 hours, not a fraction of a second. The featured image was captured over six nights, using a 24-inch diameter telescope in the Sierra Nevada Mountains, in California, USA. The bright spiral galaxy at the center (NGC 7497) looks like it is being grasped by an eerie tendril of a space ghost, and therein lies the trick. The galaxy is actually 59 million light years away, while the nebulosity is MBM 54, less than one thousand light years away, making it one of the nearest cool clouds of gas and dust -- galactic cirrus -- within our own Milky Way Galaxy. Both are in the constellation of Pegasus, which can be seen high overhead from northern latitudes in the autumn.

[MtnClimber]

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For more detail go to the link and click on the image for a high definition image. You can then move the magnifying glass cursor then click to zoom in and click again to zoom out. When zoomed in you can scan by moving the side bars on the bottom and right side of the image.

[MtnClimber]

[MtnClimber]

Pinging the APOD list.

🪐 🌟 🌌 🍔

[equaviator]

There’s nothing like the universe to bring you down to earth!

[Diana in Wisconsin]

Ethereal! :)

[DannyTN]

Luck Dragon

[AFB-XYZ]

Seeing such magnificence, how could anyone doubt the existence of Intelligent Design (and the Designer)?

[sit-rep]

we often wonder whether they are "real", and just as often the best answer varies.

...and now they are telling how to think... funny... just how many times have I said this about APOD!! lmao

[muir_redwoods]

It’s easy once you consider how much chaos there is in the system.

[dragnet2]

He did a real nice job squeezing out the data..

[Delta 21]

Nothing like an admission of guilt, eh?

[Pete from Shawnee Mission]

Beautiful! Looks like a Smoke Salamander swallowed a bright galaxy! But yes, according to the explanation the the galaxy is much further away!

Orionid meteor showers in the next couple of days!

[dragnet2]

Besides the possible added star spikes, what is not real or does not actually exist in the image, besides enhancing the existing data? I would guess the software he used to process the image allowed him to pull all the data possible from the image. I would say on this image it's pretty much as you'd see it from a planet in that neighborhood.

I think you're forgetting, this really nice shot was the result of nearly 20 *hours* of exposure time! This allowed him to collect a ton of data to process out. And this is the exact reason why people collect so many hours of data and why tracking is so critical. It makes for spectacular deep space images.

[Jamestown1630]

I don't think that God ever said that he created a Universe without 'chaos'. There's chaos throughout the Bible.

'See now that I, even I, am he, and there is no god with me: I kill, and I make alive; I wound, and I heal: neither is there any that can deliver out of my hand.'

-Deuteronomy 32:39

[muir_redwoods]

Ummm, sure