Saturday, July 14, 2007

m57Lyra


Check out m57Lyra. I was just surfing the net for blogs and come across m57Lyra's profile, I thought wow m57 is in the constellation Lyra, this person's got to be into astronomy. The person was still in the process of being approved so I kept on checking back until she was finally approved. Once approved I ventured over to take a peak and she has a couple of sites well worth your visit and comments. Being new everybody needs a little help so I thought I would throw a little traffic her way (very little, seen my blogroll, but what a blogroll Jerhico rules!). I asked her why she chose m57Lyra as a name, she said it was her first target she found on her own. M57 (m stands for messier, Charles Messier cataloged 110 various deep sky objects back in the 1700's). M57 holds fond memories for me as well, as it is my 2nd deep sky object I found by myself beside the great Hercules m13 globular star cluster. The light from m57 takes about 2,300 years to reach us, so you are looking back in time 2,300 years when you are viewing it. The central star, a white dwarf star is in its later stages of life and is releasing its atmosphere into space, making up the beautiful colors of the nebula. You can see the white dwarf in my pic I posted, this image was taken from my backyard last year.

3 comments:

MoonDanzer said...

Being right brained and left handed I am always in awe of you scientists who actually comprehend such marvelous events. My husband has tried so many times to explain black holes to me...too many to count and I am still totally ignorant concerning how and what they are. I do love the stars and moon so much as you can tell by my nic Moondanzer. I just don't understand it. Lovely share Thank you

Bob Johnson said...

Thanks moondancer, I try to make the stars accessible to everyone through this blog.

Marica said...

Likewise! Thanks for checking out my site.

I love stargazing. Your telescope makes mine look like a toy model!