Andrew Yee
March 9th 06, 03:02 PM
Office of Public Affairs and Educational Outreach
National Optical Astronomy Observatory
Tucson, Arizona
For More Information:
Douglas Isbell
Office of Public Affairs and Educational Outreach
Phone: 520/318-8230
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: Wednesday, March 8, 2006
RELEASE NO: NOAO 06-07
Image of Cometary Globule Marks 1,000 Online at NOAO
A dramatic new image of cometary globule CG4 marks the one-thousandth
image posted to the online gallery hosted by the National Optical
Astronomy Observatory.
The flower-like image of this star-forming region in Earth's southern
skies was taken by Travis Rector and Tim Abbott using a 64-megapixel
Mosaic imaging camera on the National Science Foundation's Victor M.
Blanco telescope at Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory.
Cometary globules are isolated, relatively small clouds of gas and dust
within the Milky Way. This example, called CG4, is about 1,300 light years
from Earth. Its head is some 1.5 light-years in diameter, and its tail is
about 8 light-years long. The dusty cloud contains enough material to make
several Sun-sized stars. CG4 is located in the constellation of Puppis.
The head of the nebula is opaque, but glows because it is illuminated by
light from nearby hot stars. Their energy is gradually destroying the
dusty head of the globule, sweeping away the tiny particles which scatter
the starlight. This particular globule shows a faint red glow from
electrically charged hydrogen, and it seems about to devour an edge-on
spiral galaxy (ESO 257-19) in the upper left. In reality, this galaxy is
more than a hundred million light-years further away, far beyond CG4.
The image from the 4-meter telescope was taken in four filters, three of
which are for blue, green and near-infrared light. The fourth is designed
to isolate a specific color of red, known as hydrogen-alpha, which is
produced by warm hydrogen gas. A variety of image file sizes are posted at
http://www.noao.edu/outreach/press/pr06/pr0607.html#images
The NOAO Image Gallery on the Web contains a variety of digital science
images, Messier objects, observatory panoramas, telescope photos,
portraits of key personnel and historic pictures that trace back to the
founding of Kitt Peak National Observatory in 1958 on land leased from the
Tohono O'odham Nation.
For more, see
http://www.noao.edu/image_gallery
The National Optical Astronomy Observatory (NOAO) consists of Kitt Peak
National Observatory near Tucson, AZ; Cerro Tololo Inter-American
Observatory near La Serena, Chile; and, the NOAO Gemini Science Center,
the route for U.S. astronomers to observe with the Gemini North telescope
in Hawaii and the Gemini South telescope in Chile. NOAO is operated by the
Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy Inc. (AURA), under a
cooperative agreement with the National Science Foundation.
National Optical Astronomy Observatory
Tucson, Arizona
For More Information:
Douglas Isbell
Office of Public Affairs and Educational Outreach
Phone: 520/318-8230
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: Wednesday, March 8, 2006
RELEASE NO: NOAO 06-07
Image of Cometary Globule Marks 1,000 Online at NOAO
A dramatic new image of cometary globule CG4 marks the one-thousandth
image posted to the online gallery hosted by the National Optical
Astronomy Observatory.
The flower-like image of this star-forming region in Earth's southern
skies was taken by Travis Rector and Tim Abbott using a 64-megapixel
Mosaic imaging camera on the National Science Foundation's Victor M.
Blanco telescope at Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory.
Cometary globules are isolated, relatively small clouds of gas and dust
within the Milky Way. This example, called CG4, is about 1,300 light years
from Earth. Its head is some 1.5 light-years in diameter, and its tail is
about 8 light-years long. The dusty cloud contains enough material to make
several Sun-sized stars. CG4 is located in the constellation of Puppis.
The head of the nebula is opaque, but glows because it is illuminated by
light from nearby hot stars. Their energy is gradually destroying the
dusty head of the globule, sweeping away the tiny particles which scatter
the starlight. This particular globule shows a faint red glow from
electrically charged hydrogen, and it seems about to devour an edge-on
spiral galaxy (ESO 257-19) in the upper left. In reality, this galaxy is
more than a hundred million light-years further away, far beyond CG4.
The image from the 4-meter telescope was taken in four filters, three of
which are for blue, green and near-infrared light. The fourth is designed
to isolate a specific color of red, known as hydrogen-alpha, which is
produced by warm hydrogen gas. A variety of image file sizes are posted at
http://www.noao.edu/outreach/press/pr06/pr0607.html#images
The NOAO Image Gallery on the Web contains a variety of digital science
images, Messier objects, observatory panoramas, telescope photos,
portraits of key personnel and historic pictures that trace back to the
founding of Kitt Peak National Observatory in 1958 on land leased from the
Tohono O'odham Nation.
For more, see
http://www.noao.edu/image_gallery
The National Optical Astronomy Observatory (NOAO) consists of Kitt Peak
National Observatory near Tucson, AZ; Cerro Tololo Inter-American
Observatory near La Serena, Chile; and, the NOAO Gemini Science Center,
the route for U.S. astronomers to observe with the Gemini North telescope
in Hawaii and the Gemini South telescope in Chile. NOAO is operated by the
Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy Inc. (AURA), under a
cooperative agreement with the National Science Foundation.