Transcription:
#36 Local transportation (called carterea, I understand). Horses are very small but look like larger horses, not shetland ponies. Some are very fancy and colorful. Most are similar in design. The one to the rear has small rubber tires--it is the only one I have seen with wheels so small.
- With Kodak 35 -
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I can't claim this is one of Hubble's best images but I have grown fond of it for multiple reasons. Astronomers are interested in the many bright globular clusters dotting the central region of the galaxy. The morphology of the galaxy is also interesting to study because there is a lot of evidence that its unusual appearance is due to a recent merger. There are possibly two galactic nuclei in the center. Call it another piece of a cosmological puzzle.
Some important notes about the processing: The left side includes a set of data that was less deep than the right side so you might notice the right side is a bit smoother and cleaner. Even more important, there is a hole up and to the left of the nucleus where data is completely missing. I filled it in with a gradient painting so that it wouldn't be distracting but hopefully it is just obvious enough so that you realize that is not actually data. If you look closely you can see diffraction spikes pointing toward a bright star hidden in the blank spot.
Red: hst_05212_01_wfpc2_f702w_wf_sci + hst_06861_01_wfpc2_f702w_wf_sci
Green: Pseudo
Blue: hst_05212_01_wfpc2_f555w_wf_sci + hst_06861_01_wfpc2_f450w_wf_sci
North is up.
Tags: galaxy globular clusters NGC3597 HST HLA Hubble merger
Looking over this elliptical galaxy in preview at the archive, at once I was struck by the sheer desolation of it. A casual observer will pass over this as just another boring elliptical. It lacks the personality of a spiral galaxy. It has few "friends" in the field, either in actual close proximity to it pretend friends from our Milky Way to occupy the field. This isolation is good. Without all the clutter, subtle details about the galaxy emerge. Nearly every fuzzy little white dot in the halo around this galaxy is part of the galaxy-- ancient and mysterious globular clusters. The galaxy is not as smooth anymore. It does have tiny friends. Where did they come from? Why didn't they smooth out with the rest of the galaxy? Are they in any special arrangement?
Visually, there is not a lot to occupy one's mind. I thought of other things. These data are beautiful. The quality of Hubble data is almost always high but often in this telescope's frantic lifetime there is no time for negligible details. A minimum of four separate exposures is required to easily eliminate most cosmic rays. Quite often, this simply does not happen. A minimum of two separate filters must be used to generate a color image. Happily, this bit is usually satisfied. The exposures must be dithered in a certain way to ensure the chip gap is covered. Depressingly, this does not happen often because there isn't enough time to do enough exposures. This is all just satisfactory for scientific analysis. Hubble and its operators can't be blamed.
We need more telescopes like Hubble and we need more professional observatories taking the extra effort to release their data to the public in a way that is easily accessible. We just celebrated the arrival of ESA's Rosetta at comet 67P/Churyumov–Gerasimenko. Last night NASA's MAVEN joined the Mars family of science instrument in orbit and on land. One of these missions will return raw data which will, within one year, be released for mass consumption by an eager public of amateur astronomers and space enthusiasts. The other is bogged down by petty politics. You can't just complain about people being uneducated and ignorant if their access to data is stunted. Why are there so many athletes and sports fans? Well, it's because there are thousands of stadiums built around the world. Virtually every kid has access. "If you build it, they will come."
I am not delusional enough to think astronomy as a profession or hobby will ever be as popular as sports, but I do think there are improvements that could be made by scientists and organizations. If you release the data and encourage people to get involved with it, some more astronomers might just be born. NASA's open policy is admirable. ESA's leaves much to be desired and they're not alone in that regard. I might be in a minority opinion on this and I'm not the one footing the bill on any of these expensive observatories but I'm very thankful that Hubble is operated by NASA in partnership with ESA and that means that it is part of NASA's policy to release any proprietary data within one year. It's a great thing. Science shouldn't be reserved for the privileged. Not in this century. Not with the Internet and computers as accessible as they are. All I wanted to do was create some pretty pictures at the beginning but it's grown into much more than just that.
These data were collected for Proposal 10554, "Globular Cluster Systems of Elliptical Galaxies in Low Density Environments
HST Proposal 10554"
Red: HST_10554_04_ACS_WFC_F850LP_sci
Green: Pseudo
Blue: HST_10554_04_ACS_WFC_F475W_sci
North is NOT up. It is 25.5° clockwise from up.
Tags: elliptical galaxy NGC3818 UGCA 243 HLA HST Hubble
Transcription of what was written on the back:
#11 How One signal tower Tacloban.
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NGC 2419 is an unusual globular cluster because it is so far away. It's out there orbiting the Milky Way beyond the Magellanic Clouds. It's also a great fit on Hubble's detectors because of its distance and large size, which is double great because there is a robust set of data in the archive, which made filling the chip gap rather trivial. Its nickname, Intergalactic Wanderer, is somewhat of a misnomer because it is orbiting rather than wandering (read the wiki article) but I think it's a great name and gives the cluster some character.
Data primarily came from this proposal:
UVIS Photometric Zero Points
Red: hst_11903_41_wfc3_uvis_f814w_sci + hst_11903_41_wfc3_uvis_f775w_sci + hst_11903_41_wfc3_uvis_f625w_sci
Green: hst_11903_41_wfc3_uvis_f555w_sci
Blue: hst_11903_41_wfc3_uvis_f438w_sci
Chip gap filled with:
Red: ACS/WFC f814w (j8io01071_drz) + hst_11035_04_wfpc2_f814w_wf_sci
Green: ACS/WFC f555w (j8io01021_drz) + hst_11035_04_wfpc2_f555w_wf_sci
Blue: ACS/WFC f475w (j8io01031_drz) + hst_11035_04_wfpc2_f439w_wf_sci
North is NOT up. It is 44° counter-clockwise from up.
Tags: globular cluster NGC2419 Caldwell 25 HST HLA Hubble stars Intergalactic Wanderer