M51: Cosmic WhirlpoolThis is the 51st entry in Charles Messier's catolog of two galaxies interacting in the south west. NGC 5194 might be the original spiral nebula, as seen here connecting with NGC 5195, its neighboring nebula. These are about 31 million light-years away in the constellation Canes Venatici. The sharpest image of M51 ever was taken with the Advanced Camera for Surveys on board the Hubble Space Telescope.
Beach Going in the ColdI went out 2 weeks ago to Venice beach even though it was quite frigid. I took a sheet with me and kind of wrapped myself ^ in it so I would freeze- I swear it's the stupid wind-chill factor, because FL is so damn humid all the time. I wasn't alone, though, so that helped. ~_^
it's still pretty hard for me to tell any of the autumn constellations since I don't know the star chart very well yet, though I have seen Orion's Belt shift dramatically in the sky. That was exciting, since I can always spot that. But other than that, I couldn't tell much of a different with anything, except that it seemed prettier and a bit more festive. I'll have to look for Aquarius next time.
A Galaxy Collision in NGC 6745In the lower right side of the picture, a smaller galaxy is colliding with a larger one in NGC 6745. No stars exactly collided, though dust, gas an ambient magnetic fields did. Some of the larger's galaxy's gas pulled away to create a smaller smaller in the process. This galaxy is 80 thousand light-years across and 200 million light-years away.
I find this picture the only exciting one for this week- all of the others seem rather dull and boringly simulated. I normally go for the more colourful and detailed pictures anyway, but this is ok.
SH2 136: A Spooky NebulaBecause of the different cloud size and dust, the dark SH2 136 nebula looks like some kind of humanesque creature. Starting in the 5th century (B.C.), Halloween was classified and celebrated as a cross-quarter day. This means that the day is 1/2 between an equinox, or day= night, and a solstice, or minimum day = maximum night [N Hemisphere]. Real cross-quarter days include Groundhog Day (February 2nd) and Walpurgis Night (April 30th/May 1st). I definitely think this nebula looks like suffering Vikings. Lauren Garrison came ^ with the suffering bit, but if you look closely (as I did), it looks like the people are wearing those Viking-like hats you see in operas. An on people named THOR. I want to go to an opera, like, right now. Mr. Percival is playing parts of the Bach Partitas/Sonatas and it's amazing. If anyone cares, though it is unrelated, I'm learning the second Partita, Ciccone & all. OH SNAP.
