Astro Anarchy

Monday, February 7, 2011

A Supernova Remnant poster

A collection of Supernova remnants in scale

Note! There is now an image of a full Moon as a scale.

I made this poster to show relative sizes of the Supernova remnants. All SNR's in this poster are in same scale.

A full size image, or if an image is smaller, an image holder( dark gray), covers 259' horizontally (4,3 degrees)

NOTE, there are zoomed versions from M1 and IC 443, they are not in scale, the smaller versions of them are in scale with rest of the images.

Images are in HST-palette, mixed from the emission of ionized elements, Sulfur, Hydrogen Oxygen, by a a following method:

Red = S-II, Green = H-alpha and Blue = O-III

All images are shot from my urban observatory in very centrum of city Oulu, Finland. There is two zoomed versions of images in the poster, first one is M1, the "Crab Nebula" and the second one is IC 443, the "Jellyfish Nebula". Specially the M1 has so much smaller angular diameter, that it has to be scaled up, in this scale, to see any details.

A supernova remnant (SNR) is the structure resulting from the gigantic explosion of a star.

The supernova remnant is an expanding shock wave and consists of ejected material expanding from the explosion.
There are two possible routes to a supernova:

1. A massive star may run out of fuel and collapsing inward under the force of its own gravity to form a neutron star or a black hole.

2. A white dwarf star accumulate material from a companion star until it reaches a critical mass and undergoes a thermonuclear explosion.

Images, from top Left to a bottom Right

Click thumbnails for large images, technical data behind links

Simeis 147 aka Sh2-240:

http://astroanarchy.blogspot.com/2011/01/reprocessed-supernova-remnants.html (scroll down a bit)

Sh2-223, 224 & 225:

http://astroanarchy.blogspot.com/2011/01/reprocessed-supernova-remnants.html

Veil Nebula;

http://astroanarchy.blogspot.com/2011/01/supernova-remnant-veil-nebula.html

M1, the "Crab Nebula":

http://astroanarchy.blogspot.com/2010/03/m1-crab-nebula-finalized.html

IC 443, the "Jellyfish Nebula":

http://astroanarchy.blogspot.com/2011/01/ic-443-reprocessed-closeup-and-wide.html

Friday, February 4, 2011

A Planetary Nebula poster

Note! There is now a Gray circle, size of the full Moon, as a scale.

I made this poster to show and understand relative sizes of the nebulae. All Planetary Nebulae in this image are in same scale. Each individual image covers an area of 20' horizontally. (~0,3 degrees) and

they are in "natural" colors, mixed from the narrowband channels. By a following method:

Natural color composition from the emission of ionized elements, R=80%Hydrogen+20%Sulfur, G=100%Oxygen and B=85%Oxygen+15%Hydrogen to compensate otherwise missing H-beta emission. This composition is very close to a visual spectrum.
I have made a similar poster out of supernova remnants as well, you can see it from here:http://astroanarchy.blogspot.com/2011/02/supernova-remnant-poster.html

All images, expect NGC 6302 (Bug Nebula), are shot from my urban observatory in very centrum of city Oulu. NGC 6302 was shot with a remote telescope, 16" RCOS, from Australia.

All of the images are Planetary Nebulae.
Planetary nebulae are shells of gas, shed by stars late in their life cycles after using up all of their nuclear fuel. The gas is illuminated and ionized by its extremely hot central star, a core left from the original star.
Our own star, the Sun, is expected to undergo the same process in a couple of billion years.

Images, from top Left to a bottom Right
Click thumbnails for large images, technical data behind links

M27, the "Dumbbell Nebula":

http://astroanarchy.blogspot.com/2011/02/m27-dumbbell-nebula-reprocessed.html