Anatomy of the Orion Nebula – Imaging and imagining 3-D Gas Bodies

Anatomy of the Orion Nebula – Imaging and imagining 3-D Gas Bodies

It is easy to forget that our 2-D images are actually representations of 3-D gas bodies, that are acting according to 4-D dynamics. In day to day life, we have many clues that we can rely upon including parallax views, perspective rules, lights and shadows, and actual physical interaction that we can use to assess the nature of objects in 3-D and 3+1 space. Unfortunately many of these clues are absent or confusing in our deep space objects. In this post, we analyze a 2-D image of the Great Orion Nebula and stellar nursery including its shape and orientation in 3-D space. Along the way, we will present an understanding of the three principle gas types in deep space photography

Video Post – How Friction Creates a Galaxy’s Spirals

Video Post – How Friction Creates a Galaxy’s Spirals

The videos presented here represent a culmination of my analysis of spiral galactic structure.  The conventional explanations of how spiral work try to shoe-horn the partial differential equations of Navier-Stokes and Maxwell, into the ordinary ones of astro-physicist’s simulations and this leads to gross misrepresentations.  It is like an illness in the popular scientific community that is directly related, although less political, to the climate simulators and their ODE simulations of our dynamic, convective atmosphere.  “Unicorn” constructs, such as gravity density waves are really how the ODE solutions are tricked into giving realistic results.   Shortcuts to PDEs, such as “Ram Pressure”, are elevated to the position of real explanations.   There videos take a overview look at how spiral galaxies really

Star Nucleation Amped Up by Tidal Effects

Star Nucleation Amped Up by Tidal Effects

Spiral galaxies can vary widely in the amount of stars they are generating. It is asserted that star nucleation, via the imposition of high pressure over small volumes of molecular cloud, is the rate determining step. Turbulence of molecular clouds in galaxies is greatly increased when the chaotic, but stable, spiral galactic structure is disturbed by tidal effects of nearby galaxies. In this posting, the three main galaxies of the Leo triplet are used to illustrate and link the chain of events from tidal influence to rapid star production in the galaxies we image.

The Hidden Galaxy – Now you see it

The Hidden Galaxy – Now you see it

IC342/Caldwell 5 – The Hidden Galaxy in LHaRGB Planewave CDK 12.5in; AP 1100GTO AE; QHY600M, – Baader Cmos Opt Broadband and 6.5nm Ha FiltersL: (50 x 180s, Bin 1, Gain 100); H: (29 x 720s Bin 1, Gain 100); R,G,B: (25,23,22 x 210s, Bin 1, Gain 100)Total integration time = 12.4 hrs (Feb 10-12, 2025) Maple Bay, BC, Canada For full resolution, downloadable image, visit my gallery at Victoria RASC Zenfolio or Astobin The Hidden Galaxy gets its name from its position in the sky, near the Milky Way and partly obscured by our galaxy’s dust.   If not for the dust, IC342 would be visible with the naked eye and occupy about the same size as the moon. In reality

The Whirlpool Galaxy (M51) – In for Questioning

The Whirlpool Galaxy (M51) – In for Questioning

The M51 Galaxy or “The Whirlpool Galaxy” definitely strikes an awsome pose, with its two apparent “centres”, and multiple star fuzzies emanating from its extremes. I decided to get all Sherlock Holmesy on it in my desire to figure out what was going on. Yes it is two glalaxies interacting, but what is the nature of this interaction. What happened to its bottom arm? – it looks like it was bitten off. The upper arm looks more intact, but also exhibiting Halpha starburst too. Is the bottom of the galaxy connected to the top with stars circling the left hand side? Can infrared light help us? Can it potentially reveal something? I recommend reading more to find out.

Circulation and Jewelry – The Galactic Spiral Structure (Part 5)

Circulation and Jewelry – The Galactic Spiral Structure (Part 5)

In the ultimate post of the series, we finally get to add some of the things that we image in galaxies – emissions, dust, and stars, to the stuff we can’t see – hydrogen and black holes. The stuff we can see brings life to the galaxy and are indeed necessarily for its longevity and new star production.
Gravity is shown to be periodic both in radial and angular directions, just like the spiral, but the various forces at play effect the galactic jewelry in different ways to give us regions of emissions, dust lanes, and star orbits. Explanations are provides as to why the arms can extend for radii way beyond what we do see, why dark matter is unnecessary (just a hydrogen accounting error). The spiral structure even explains why velocity vs radius plots look periodic when even dark matter doesn’t explain it.