Posted on 04/16/2013 4:00:17 AM PDT by SunkenCiv
Explanation: One of the brightest galaxies in planet Earth's sky is similar in size to our Milky Way Galaxy: big, beautiful M81. This grand spiral galaxy lies 11.8 million light-years away toward the northern constellation of the Great Bear (Ursa Major). The deep image of the region reveals details in the bright yellow core, but at the same time follows fainter features along the galaxy's gorgeous blue spiral arms and sweeping dust lanes. It also follows the expansive, arcing feature, known as Arp's loop, that seems to rise from the galaxy's disk at the upper right. Studied in the 1960s, Arp's loop has been thought to be a tidal tail, material pulled out of M81 by gravitational interaction with its large neighboring galaxy M82. But a subsequent investigation demonstrates that at least some of Arp's loop likely lies within our own galaxy. The loop's colors in visible and infrared light match the colors of pervasive clouds of dust, relatively unexplored galactic cirrus only a few hundred light-years above the plane of the Milky Way. Along with the Milky Way's stars, the dust clouds lie in the foreground of this remarkable view. M81's dwarf companion galaxy, Holmberg IX, can be seen just above the large spiral. On the sky, this image spans about 0.5 degrees, about the size of the Full Moon.
(Excerpt) Read more at 129.164.179.22 ...
[Credit & Copyright: Bernard Miller]
Nice, a nebula yesterday, a Messier object today!
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Whoops, pinged the wrong list!!!
Wonderful! Thanks, Sunky!
Arp’s loop is named after astronomer Halton Arp, Edwin Hubbel’s former chief assistant. Halton was blackballed out of his profession, had his telescope time at Mt. Wilson taken, was refused publication in peer reviewed journels and had to resort on piggybacking the last of his research on his student’s projects. He was made a heretic for discovering evidence that the doppler effect red shift may not be an indicator of velocity thus rendering Big Bang, Black Hole, Dark Matter and all the other cosmetic surgeries passing for scientific cosmology, as candidates for the dustbin of history. Visit his web site, read his books, starting with “Seeing Red” and decide for yourself. Get smarter or die.
Is that Sheldon?
Hey! I was looking at M81/M82 this past weekend through my new 20/100x-80 binoculars (20 to 100 zoom).
Even at low power these suckers are hugh! I’m Sirius!
Got a nice view of some of the Virgo galaxies too.
That is spectacular, Mr. Civilizations. I really enjoy the ones that can be expanded at the APOD site and examined in detail.
Thanks again.
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