Astronomy Picture of the Day 10-06-02

NASA ^ | 10-06-02 | Robert Nemiroff and Jerry Bonnell

[petuniasevan]

Astronomy Picture of the Day

Discover the cosmos! Each day a different image or photograph of our fascinating universe is featured, along with a brief explanation written by a professional astronomer.

2002 October 6

The Lagoon Nebula in Three Colors
Credit: R. Barba, N. Morrell et al. (UNLP), CTIO, NOAO, NSF

Explanation: The bright Lagoon Nebula is home to a diverse array of astronomical objects. Particularly interesting sources include a bright open cluster of stars and several energetic star-forming regions. When viewed by eye, cluster light is dominated by an overall red glow that is caused by luminous hydrogen gas, while the dark filaments are caused by absorption by dense lanes of dust. The above picture, from the Curtis-Schmidt Telescope, however, shows the nebula's emission in three exact colors specifically emitted by hydrogen, oxygen, and sulfur. The Lagoon Nebula, also known as M8 and NGC 6523, lies about 5000 light-years away. The Lagoon Nebula can be located with binoculars in the constellation of Sagittarius spanning a region over three times the diameter of a full Moon.

[petuniasevan]

Astronomy Fun Fact:

On a really dark summer night (moonless!) you might catch a glimpse of the Lagoon Nebula with the naked eye! Of course, you need to live farther south than 55 degrees north to have M8 above the horizon enough to see it clearly, and to avoid summer twilight. Here at 45 degrees north, I can pick out M8 at some point during the hours of darkness (using binoculars a lot of the time) anywhere from the beginning of March to the middle of October. Of course it's low in the sky and sets soon after darkness now.

For those of you who love astronomy or just want to learn more, or your kids do, I can recommend a program I use. It's called Starry Night. It's available in 3 levels: Beginner, Backyard, and Pro. I use Pro. Mom uses Backyard. Product comparison chart HERE . No, I don't have anything to do with the manufacture or marketing of the software. No, I don't work for Space.com Software. I just like their product.

[petuniasevan]

[WSGilcrest]

Probably not as sophisticated as the Starry Night software, but it's free and does have a lot of features.

http://www.geocities.com/SiliconValley/Code/7659/welcomee.html

Enjoy, and thanks for the wonderful APOD pics!

~Stu

[BossyRoofer]

Great picture, I'll check out starry night. Good job APOD!

[MeekOneGOP]

[Lil Boop]

I just love the pictures.