NGC1964: More black holes

Galaxies are entities far beyond the power of our little human brains to grasp. Yes, we think that we understand what they are because we see their nucleus and the spiral arms that whirl around it. But do we really realise what it is we're seeing? Do we, for instance, really understand that the billions of stars that make up the Milky Way that spans across the sky only comprises but a small part of our own galaxy? Do we really have any idea what hundreds of billions of stars actually mean? How much is a hundred billion anyway? And given that there are at least a hundred billion galaxies in the visible universe, each containing hundreds of billions of stars, it would be sheer arrogance to state that the Earth lies at the centre of the Universe and that we, tiny humans, are its divine culmination. 

Now point your telescope again to Orion's feet, to the unknown constellation of Lepus, the hare. In my previous post I've shown you an unexpectedly beautiful planetary nebula in that constellation. Now I'd like to show you a distant galaxy there. NGC1964 lies about 65 million light-years away from us. That's not exceptionally distant since our universe has a radius of over 13 billion light-years, but still, the light of this galaxy started its voyage to Earth around the time that the asteroid, which caused the extinction of the dinosaurs, hit us. So that's a considerable distance. The thing that struck me at first glance, was that this galaxy has a very bright, almost stellar-like core. It immediately reminded me of M77, a galaxy which has a particularly big black hole in its nucleus. The strange thing about black holes is that they're not really black as seen from Earth, but as a matter of fact they're very bright. That's because matter clumps together around it, pulled in by its enormous gravitational force, and becomes extremely dense and hot. So when you see a galaxy with a core like this, rest assured that it contains a super-massive black hole!

IC418: The Spirograph

There's so much unknown beauty up there that it never ceases to amaze me. In the dark constellation of Lepus, the hare, at the feet of mighty Orion, you'll find this little bugger. It's obviously a planetary nebula, and one that listens to the denominator IC418, but more commonly known as the Spirograph Nebula. It's nick refers to its complex, almost mathematical structure. 

Experts among you will already have guessed that this nebula's still quite young, hardly 2,600 years old, and in full expansion. Though very small in spite of its relatively close distance of 3,600 light-years, you'll quickly notice some extraordinary details if conditions allow you to push telescope power. Its bright outer shell, gas that was expelled when the star was still in its red giant phase, shines brightly under the heat of the brilliant white dwarf in its heart. The inner shell, on the other hand, appeared much brighter still and seemed to sparkle in the atmospheric turbulences of our Earth. This inner shell is the dying star's atmosphere that was blown away into space after nuclear fusion had become critically unstable. Soon the inner shell will expand so quickly that it'll catch up with the much slower outer envelope, possibly even break through it in order to form ansae, like the ones of the Saturn Nebula. 

So keep your eye on this one because it still has a lot in store for us in the near future... er... in the next couple of thousand years. 

Berkeley 21: The edge of our galaxy

Loyal readers of my blog know that I'm obsessed with faint fuzzies... objects so difficult to see that you sometimes wonder whether what you see is real or whether you've entered the realm of science fiction. But perhaps the objects that fascinate me more than anything else are extremely remote (and therefore faint) open clusters. Last year already I took you to Berkeley 19, a cluster that lies even beyond the outermost spiral arm of our galaxy. Today, I'd like to take you just a little bit closer, to a distance of merely 16,000 light-years, right in the heart of this outermost spiral arm. There lies this old star cluster, denominated Berkeley 21, the light of which is nearly completely extinguished by the interstellar dust of the broad Perseus spiral arm which lies between the outer arm and our own. In other words, prepare for something very difficult to see. 

At 104x, I only got a hunch of a fuzzy patch... the suspicion that I had nailed it. It was not until I pushed telescope power to 285x that the cluster revealed itself and at 507x most of its stars could be resolved, albeit with great difficulty. For your information, the brighter stars you see on my sketch all lie a lot closer to us!

Star clusters in that extremely remote part of our galaxy are usually very old because the gravitational influence of the galaxy is a lot less and interstellar matter's not stirred up as much. So don't expect a lot of spectacular star formation there. And if eventually a star cluster does form, it stands a much better chance of remaining compact. Berkeley 21 therefore could be many billions of years old, perhaps even be as old as our galaxy itself.

NGC2129: Others taking the credit

How many times have I already argued that appearances can be so deceiving when observing the night's sky? Sirius shines so brightly that you'd easily think it must be the biggest star out there, but then you realise it only lies 8 light-years away from us. Deneb, the brightest star in Cygnus, looks a lot fainter than Sirius from our perspective, but radiates no less than 200,000 (!) solar luminosities at us from its 1,400 light-year distance. 

Now look at this lovely open cluster, NGC2129, which you'll find on the border between Gemini and Taurus. It's an easy target even for binoculars and that's mainly due to the two bright stars at its centre. Now what if I told you that in reality these two stars aren't even remotely close to the cluster and that they only appear to be part of it from our perspective? Indeed, the brightest of the two (HD250290) is an ordinary, 3 solar mass yellow giant, which lies 1,800 light-years away. Its fainter "sister" that lies slightly below (HD250289) is a similar yellow giant but it lies at a distance of 2,700 light-years. And the rest of the cluster? Well, you'd have to travel three times as far, 7,200 light-years to be precise. So those two bright stars have nothing to do with it whatsoever, nor are they related to each other. They just happen to float in front of this lovely, remote cluster which contains about three dozen stars and which is slowly breaking up under the gravitational force of our galaxy. 

 

STF867: The joys of double star observing

How can you ever get bored looking at the stars? There are literally billions of them and every single one has its own personal character and story. None, however, show their particular nature as well as binary stars. It's still not clear how many stars are actually double or multiple star systems, but estimates range from 50% for smaller, Sun-like stars to even 80% for massive, hot giants. 

Many of these double stars are a real pleasure to observe, as I've already shown you many times before. Sometimes the challenge is that they're so close together that they're on the limit of what a human observer can distinguish with his amateur telescope. Procyon springs to mind. Others are easier to separate and show the most amazing, contrasting colours, like Ras Algheti. The choice's nearly infinite and I often ask the computer of my telescope to amaze me at random. And then you come across star systems that have hardly been observed by anyone, but who'll mesmerise you with their beauty.

Has anyone of you ever heard of Struve 867? It's just one entry to the enormous list of the famous 19th century German Astronomer. And yet, when my telescope turned to this little star in Orion, I was so charmed that I immediately took my sketchbook. 

The main star is a 7th magnitude white giant that shines 286 solar luminosities at us from the respectable distance of 1,300 light-years. It's companion, only 2.2 arc-seconds apart, appeared orange to me. At magnitude 8.88 it's considerably dimmer and slowly revolves around the main star from a distance of 876 times the distance between the Sun and the Earth (AU or Astronomical Unit). To give you a better idea, that's 25 times the distance from here to Pluto. They only appear almost glued to each other because they're so far away from us. 

Enjoy!