space

Cosmic Genesis

Posted by dale on Aug 11, 2008 in space, willow | 32 comments

For this weeks Creative Photo, I peered into cosmic genesis and found the likeness of my little cherub gently encouraging infant stars into the Small Magellanic Cloud crèche.

If your curious about this small satellite galaxy NGC 602 (pictured) near the Small Magellanic Cloud it’s 200 thousand light-years distant. Surrounded by natal gas and dust, NGC 602 is featured in this stunning Hubble image of the region. Fantastic ridges and swept back shapes strongly suggest that energetic radiation and shock waves from NGC 602′s massive young stars have eroded the dusty material and triggered a progression of star formation moving away from the cluster’s center. At the estimated distance of the Small Magellanic Cloud, the nebula background picture spans about 200 light-years, but a tantalizing assortment of background galaxies are also visible in the sharp Hubble view. The background galaxies are hundreds of millions of light-years or more beyond NGC 602.

Doodle Week – My Dream Doodle Vacation

Posted by dale on Jul 17, 2008 in doodle, space | 5 comments

Here I am all Doodled up and ready to go. I suspect I’ll have about a 7 month cruise before getting to Mars. Spend about 9 months on the planet bouncing around, exploring lava caves and sifting for precious metals before jumping back in my ride and taking another 8 or 9 months to retun to good ol’ Earth. Anyone wanna come along?

This is my Thursday Doodle for Doodle Week. If you haven’t guessed, today’s theme is Doodle Vacation.

Doodle Week – Doodle Space

Posted by dale on Jul 16, 2008 in doodle, space | 10 comments

This is day two of Doodle Week and the theme for today is Doodle Space. Here’s my Doodle Space Doodle. You can check out all the Doodles at the Flickr Doodle Week Group.

For today’s Space Doodle, I thought I’d give you directions to the little red planet. If you happen to be rocketing around the Solar System, be sure and drop by for a visit.

cheers!

Nebula In My Backyard – Zenwalk Linux Wallpaper

Posted by dale on Jul 1, 2008 in linux, space | 2 comments

Here’s another Zenwalk Linux wallpaper. This one is based on my Nebula In My Backyard II image. The image featurres a photo off my balcony early one morning superimposed upon a Hubble Space Telepscope shot of the Orion Nebula. Download a hi-resolution version (1800×1200) here.

When It Gets Darkest the Stars Come Out

Posted by dale on Jun 12, 2008 in General, space | 11 comments

I created this out of a request that came from Drew at Benspark.com. Drew posted

“what I am looking for is to get as many photos of people from all over the world who are holding messages of hope. Think Good Morning America’s “Three Words”. I am going to compile those photos into a video set to music to give to the family. Hope is what is keeping this family going and hope is what I want to give them.”

Best wishes to the Machinski family … always look to the stars for hope and inspiration.

NGC 3603 – The Holy Temple of the Galactic Wanderer

Posted by dale on May 27, 2008 in space | 6 comments

On the weekend I wandered around Melbourne with my family. While crossing the street I snapped this photo of the church opposite Federation Square. The background is a Hubble Space Telescope shot of the NGC 3603 star forming region.

(from Wikipedia)

NGC 3603 is a giant H II region^[1] in the Carina spiral arm of the Milky Way around 20,000 light-years away from our solar system. It was discovered by John Frederick William Herschel in 1834. It is home to an open cluster (centre of the image) containing about 2000 bright stars, each of which is much brighter and more massive than our Sun, and the only giant H II region in our galaxy that is visible at optical wavelengths.

NGC 3603 is visible in the telescope as a small rather insignificant nebulosity with a yellowish tinge due to the effects of interstellar absorption. In the mid-1960s optical studies coincided with radio astronomical observations which showed it to be an extremely strong thermal radio source. Later observations in other galaxies introduced the concept of ‘starburst’ regions, in some cases whole galaxies, of extremely rapid star formation and NGC 3603 is now considered to be such a region. In 1987 a supernova (known as SN 1987A) occurred in the Large Magellanic Cloud. This was the first supernova to be close enough for detailed observation with satellite based telescopes. One result was the discovery that prior to the main explosion it had thrown off a relatively small amount of material in a very distinctive pattern, a bit like an hourglass perpendicular to a detached glowing ring. One star in NGC 3603 (Sher 25, the number comes from the 1960s optical observations) was found to have thrown off matter in a pattern similar to that found for the supernova 1987A. This coincidence has aroused intense interest.