Comments on: Rudolph the red-dusted Strömgren sphere

By: Bartman

Bartman — Sat, 24 Dec 2011 20:40:44 +0000

So this isn’t related to Beta Stromgren?
Too bad, since that star is gonna go Supernova in 2366

———————
Yeah, yeah, I know, but I couldn’t resist.
I liked the series, but not a geek.
I only remembered the name because I thought the name Beta Stromgren was pretty cool!

By: ‘Tis the season… for a little more astronomy! | Intelligent Life

Sat, 24 Dec 2011 15:03:54 +0000

[...] looking at astronomy pictures almost daily, and today we came across this one, again courtesy of Phil Plait (click the link as he offers, as usual, a great explanation of what it is we’re seeing [...]

By: Marina

Marina — Sat, 24 Dec 2011 03:53:21 +0000

You see a reindeer? I see a five-pointed star. In a circle. With a ruby in the middle.

By: Messier Tidy Upper

Messier Tidy Upper — Sat, 24 Dec 2011 00:35:35 +0000

PS. Oops forgot you guys are a day behind us here in Australia for a second too. Oh well still sorta works I hope.

Hmm … There does seem a slight shortage of the dark Barnard nebulae on APoD – still no luck finding it there. Only 3 the Horsehead, Barnard 72 or the Snake nebula and Barnard 68 appear on their index – although Barnard 163 appears elsewhere in the search. Oh well, guess I can hope they add this one tomorrow then!

By: Messier Tidy Upper

Messier Tidy Upper — Sat, 24 Dec 2011 00:15:07 +0000

To the tune of .. well y’know!

Rudolph the red-dusted Strömgren sphere
Was a very gassy ball
And if you ever saw it,
You would even say it glows

At least in the infra-red
As this WISE shot shows
Rudolph with your gassy glow
We’ll call you Barnard Three that’s so!

All of the other nebulae
Often also had Barnard names
But they never let poor Rudolph
Join the intergalactic games

Then one distant Xmas eve
On far off planet Earth
The WISE shot showed Rudolph so bright
Barnard Three what an awesome sight!

Then all the nebulae loved him
Said “You can be an APoD* too!”
Rudolph the red-dusted Strömgren sphere
For Christmas Eve we think you’ll do!

***

Yeah, I know I’ve had to mess around ith the verse order just a trifle. Still best I could come up with in the appropriate doggrel dept.

* APod = Astronomy Picture of the Day – click on my name for the site. Alas, B3 is not yet there that I could find.

By: Anchor

Anchor — Fri, 23 Dec 2011 22:07:16 +0000

This was one of the many dark nebulae catalogued by E.E. Barnard, an astronomer who was an outstanding astrophotographer and observational artist. Here’s his own photo of the region in which the object catalogued “B 3″ resides, in Perseus:

http://www.library.gatech.edu/Barnard_Project_W/plate/Bar-pt1-pl003_sm.jpg

B 3 is that compact little ‘peninsular’ dark nodule just left of the center intruding into the cleared area, much like the Horsehead does.

His Photographic Atlas of Selected Regions of the Milky Way, was published posthumously by Yerkes Observatory after his death in 1923:

http://www.library.gatech.edu/barnard/

By: Jaycee

Jaycee — Fri, 23 Dec 2011 21:04:23 +0000

Phil, which pics would you take out of the running to include these new ones? Be happy they waited so you can include these next year.

By: Crux Australis

Crux Australis — Fri, 23 Dec 2011 20:12:28 +0000

“Strömgren sphere” is inordinately difficult to say.

By: Jonathan Lubin

Jonathan Lubin — Fri, 23 Dec 2011 19:36:59 +0000

The guy’s first name is Bengt, not Bernt.

By: Phil Plait

Phil Plait — Fri, 23 Dec 2011 19:09:51 +0000

John(4): The star lighting up the cloud is actually much hotter than the Sun. If you click the pic to get the bigger version, you’l see it looks blue, but that’s false-color too. This gets confusing. It would be blue-white to our eyes, but it’s blue here because it puts out more short wavelength IR light than long wavelength. The way the colors are set up in WISE images, the shorter stuff is blue, the longer stuff red.