Strange animals in the sky

The horse head nebula:

http://images.google.com/images?gbv=2&um=1&hl=en&q=horse+head+nebula

The tarantula nebula:

http://images.google.com/images?gbv=2&um=1&hl=en&q=tarantula+nebula&btnG=Search+Images

The owl nebula:

http://images.google.com/images?gbv=2&um=1&hl=en&q=owl+nebula

The cat's eye nebula:

http://images.google.com/images?gbv=2&um=1&hl=en&q=cat%27s+eye+nebula

The pelican nebula:

http://images.google.com/images?gbv=2&um=1&hl=en&q=pelican+nebula

This one is one of my favorites: The eagle nebula:

http://physics.uwyo.edu/~amonson/wiro/instruments/primefocus/wiroprime/pretty_pictures/M16_HaOIIIOII.jpg


It seems there's a cloud up there to suit every animal on the planet. Strange isn't it?

Thak you Ahad, I have always liked looking at the sky on a starry night but know so little about it. The picture look wonderful it just makes you wish you could visit them in person. Though I think the radation would probably kill you well before you got close.

Very cool!

Billy,
Isn't it nice to just appreciate the sky the way it is, for its beauty, its colours and celestial magic? Do we need to get all clued up about the intricacies and become "astronomers"? I think people get frightened off astronomy by all the detail.

We look at a tree standing isolated on a hill top. We admire it for its beautiful flowers, its leaves changing colour, for the way it sways in the stormy breeze. Full stop. Full stop again.

Along comes a botanist and he gives you the low down on what genus it is, what soils it thrives on best, which native countries it grows in, etc etc, Some people will swtich off by this point.

This why I like the good old days. They had such long instruments in those days:

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/8/86/Refractor_Cincinnati_observatory.jpg

Long instruments, indeed!!

Great pictures Ahad! Awesome, in fact.

Yes Ahad, it is good just to look up but I sometimes wish I knew the if that redish dot was mars or if that group there really was the plough or whatever. Still I suppose we can never know everything, yet we can still enjoy the simple things. Thank you again for sharing those wonderful pictures.

Ahad,
I would enjoy standing next to you, star gazing, with you giving telling me what I see.
The analogy with the tree is good.

Okay if you look due south about 9:00 pm on any evening now, you'll see a bright star about a third of the way going up from the horizon towards the zenith (the point directly overhead when you arch your back gazing up). That is the brilliant white star Sirius, the brightest star in the whole sky.

You can't miss it, it outshines every other star in that part of the sky at this time of year.

The brightest blob of light in this photo above the mountain is Sirius:

http://zuserver2.star.ucl.ac.uk/~idh/apod/image/0702/alborzmountains_tafreshi_63.jpg

This chart gives the diagrammatic view:

http://www.mythicalireland.com/ancientsites/newgrange/orion-sirius.jpg

Wow! And here I was thinking that was a planet.

A good book to keep with you when stargazing is this one:

http://www.amazon.com/Night-Sky-Collins-Harper-Publishers/dp/0004588177/ref=sr_1_6?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1233836633&sr=1-6

Collins "Gem" is apt in the title.... and it really is a gem of a pocket book that tells you exactly what's up and where in the sky most anytime.

A pair of binoculars is very handy to keep in the pocket, when you're out and about in the dark. Much more compact and portable than any telescope, binoculars were my first optical aid when I'd started out in astronomy as a kid over two decades ago.

You can also join a local astronomy club or society near you. Most towns and cities across the world have a society which are for absolute beginners, as well as more experienced observers.

Find yours from this list:

http://www.astronomyclubs.com/

Yeah, astronomy is a nice peaceful hobby and 2009 has been declared 'International Astronomy Year' by the IAU:

http://www.astronomy2009.org/general/

Pretty good, eh?

So that constellation to the right of it is orions belt. I've seen that one in the sky from childhood and always thought that was it but was never sure till now.

Orion it is! How splendid you have seen it.

I am also a fan of the ancient Greek mythology surrounding many of these constellations. Orion was of course a great Hunter and the three stars you see mark his belt. He was accompanied by his faithful servants, the two hunting dogs, and he was fighting a charging bull, which is depicted by the zodiacal constellation Taurus placed over to the right of Orion in the sky:

http://www.mysteriousworld.com/Content/Images/Journal/2003/Autumn/Osiria/OrionTaurus_large.gif

Sirius is called the 'Dog Star' because it lies in Canis Major - the bigger of Orion's two hunting dogs that are pictured in the sky to the left of him:

http://www.space.com/images/sirius_procyon_map_030715_02.jpg


etc...

I loved hearing some of the myths when at school but only really fell in love with history after I escaped the educational system. As I get older and the middle age spread threatens to over come me I find that I would rather watch the history channel as well as other channels that share such knowledge.

I always find historical things very pleasant to read about or watch on television. It could be to do with age, though I have always had fond flashbacks of past events in my own sphere of experience and I probably see them more rosier than they really were.

It is said to be a fact in psychology that when we look back upon our lives we often tend to remember the good things about our childhood and past and forget the nasty things.

Tonight, the evening has turned out to be very beautiful where I am. We have moonlight, the dazzle of white snow and music in the bars, all mingling together to create quite a memorable night scene...

I have posted an image of the Sombrero spiral galaxy to the book page on Amazon:

http://www.amazon.com/Forever-Friends-Shelagh-Watkins/dp/1409232905/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1234191882&sr=1-1

http://www.amazon.com/gp/customer-media/product-gallery/1409232905/ref=cm_ciu_pdp_images_0?ie=UTF8&index=0


If you feel your own story could do with an image, I hope you'll add one to Forever Friends, too...

Thanks Abdul! I have just set up an Amapedia page on Amazon.com:

http://amapedia.amazon.com/view/Forever+Friends/id=958037

I took the questions and answers from the blog tour.

I enjoyed reading your Q & A on amapedia. Very smartly handled...

Of all the myriad of things that astronomical and cosmological thought inspires in us, what I find most humbling of all and immensely mind boggling is that the Sun is just another 'star'. It is not even in the league of the most luminous of all stars, and ranks pretty average as stellar brightnesses go. Only reason why it's that huge is because of our closeness to it.

To fully appreciate the Sun as a 'star', we need only go a few light years out from here in any direction into deep interstellar space and take a look back.

If we reached such a New Earth at Alpha Centauri then the daytime sky of that world would of course have Alpha Centauri's two primary suns as the 'suns' in the sky.
And when those two suns have descended below the horizon of New Earth after nightfall, our Sun will make itself visible as just another twinkling star:

http://www.astroscience.org/abdul-ahad/firstarktoalphacentauri/sunbrightness.htm

Though it will not be the most prominent of all stars in the Centaurian night sky. Not even the second or the third most prominent, in fact, but maybe the sixth or seventh place in the rank of stellar brightness...

Would an alien really bother to consider our sun in their night sky?

Do aliens really exist? I haven't seen any...

Well I haven't either but the likelyhood is strong that some form of life does exist out there. You just have to look at Mars for proof that some form of life can evolve on other planets. NASA with their rovers found rock that we are told by the experts could only exist if life was their at sometime in the distant past. That is just one place they are looking at within our solar system.

Don't you work for them Ahad? So why am I telling you?

Billy,
In these kinds of things one has to rely on one's own intuition. There is no "truth" as yet... and how many times have we heard stories of people who've been taken away by aliens on UFOs, married to aliens, then returned back to earth again?


This is a valid reasoning:

All men are mortal
Socrates is a man
(Therefore,) Socrates is mortal

Those kinds pf stories I don't take seriously. Really why would aliens come here? It does make a good read though or movie but really it is stretching things to believe that. The power to cross the distances between the stars is just a little to great. And if it were a colony ship would they not want to avoid planets that were inhabited? That is if their is other intellegent life out there? I just like to keep an open mind on the subject as you can't really say one way or the other for sure.