Super-detailed image of giant stellar nursery (Forwarded)

Royal Astronomical Society
London, U.K.

Issued by RAS Press Officers:

Robert Massey
Tel: +44 (0)20 7734 4582
AND
Anita Heward
Tel: +44 (0)1483 420 904

NATIONAL ASTRONOMY MEETING PRESS ROOM (16 - 20 APRIL ONLY):
Tel: +44 (0)1772 892 613
+44 (0)1772 892 475
+44 (0)1772 892 477

RAS Web site:
http://www.ras.org.uk/

RAS National Astronomy Meeting web site:
http://nam2007.uclan.ac.uk

CONTACTS:

Robert Greimel
University of Graz, Austria
Tel: +43 (0)720 737512

Nick Wright
University College, London
Tel: +44(0)7679 4348

Professor Janet Drew
Principal Investigator, IPHAS
Imperial College, London
Tel: +44 (0)20 7594 7553

From 17 to 18 April, Robert Greimel and Nick Wright can be contacted via
the NAM press office (see above).

PRESS INFORMATION NOTE: RAS PN 07/26 (NAM 22)

EMBARGOED FOR 00:01 BST, WEDNESDAY, 18 APRIL 2007

SUPER-DETAILED IMAGE OF GIANT STELLAR NURSERY

An international team of astronomers have collaborated to create the most
detailed image ever produced of the Rosette Nebula (NGC 2237), a giant
stellar nursery. The new image was assembled using data from INT
Photometric H-Alpha Survey of the Northern Galactic Plane (IPHAS) and
covers four square degrees of sky, equivalent in size to about twenty
times the size of the full moon. Robert Greimel from the University of
Graz, Austria, will present results from the survey in a talk on Wednesday
18 April at the Royal Astronomical Society National Astronomy Meeting in
Preston.

The Rosette nebula is a vast cloud of dust and gas spanning 100 light
years and lying about 4500 light-years away, in the direction of the
constellation of Monoceros. Inside the nebula lies a cluster of bright,
massive, young stars (NGC 2244), whose strong stellar winds and radiation
have cleared a hole in the nebula's centre. Ultraviolet light from these
hot stars excites the surrounding nebula, causing it to glow.

Star formation is still active around the nebula, as proven by the
presence of a very young infrared star (AFGL 961) still in its final
stages of formation. It is thought that the young massive stars in the
nebula will one day blow all the gas and dust away. The centre of the
Rosette Nebula is about 1.8 degrees below the Galactic Plane, the glow
from which can be seen at the top left (northeastern) corner of this
image.

Due to the large size of the nebula on the sky, most large telescopes are
unable to capture the entire nebula in one exposure and therefore the
highest resolution images have been limited to small areas of the nebula.
The IPHAS team is in the process of imaging the entire plane of our Galaxy
and members of the survey team were able to combine almost 200 individual
images to make this large and detailed H-alpha image.

Nick Wright from University College, London, commented, "The superb
quality of this image reflects the high quality and large amounts of data
produced by the IPHAS survey. Using images like this one, many members of
our collaboration are working hard to make important discoveries about the
structure and content of our Galaxy."

Even more detailed images of the central parts of the Rosette Nebula have
also been prepared by the IPHAS team, including one of dense dust lanes in
the nebula where star formation may still be ongoing.

IPHAS is a survey of the entire Northern Galactic Plane at three different
wavelengths, using the Wide Field Camera on the 2.5m Isaac Newton
Telescope sited on La Palma in the Canary Islands. When complete, it will
cover an area of 1800 square degrees. The survey is now almost finished
and the first release of the catalogue is expected by June 2007. IPHAS
will soon be followed by VPHAS+, a complementary Southern Galactic Plane
survey using the ESO 2.5m VLT Survey Telescope (VST) in Chile.

NOTES FOR EDITORS

The 2007 RAS National Astronomy Meeting is hosted by the University of
Central Lancashire. It is sponsored by the Royal Astronomical Society and
the UK Science and Technology Facilities Council.

This year the NAM is being held together with the UK Solar Physics (UKSP)
and Magnetosphere, Ionosphere and Solar-Terrestrial (MIST) spring
meetings. 2007 is International Heliophysical Year.

The IPHAS collaboration brings together astronomers from universities
across Europe, the USA and Australia and is led by Professor Janet Drew of
Imperial College, London.

IMAGES

The large IPHAS image can also be found at
http://www.star.ucl.ac.uk/~nwright/d...tte_nebula.bmp
[JPEG version:
http://zuserver2.star.ucl.ac.uk/~nwr...tte_nebula.jpg (2.6MB)]

Other images of the Rosette nebula:
http://www.star.ucl.ac.uk/~nwright/imaging.html

The IPHAS collaboration:
http://www.iphas.org