[Placidus (Mike and Trish)]

Originally Posted by Jeff

Just amazing M&T.
Spent a good 30 minutes admiring your full resolution image and enjoying the superb write up.

Many thanks for your kind words Jeff.

Originally Posted by silv

One ring to fool them all and in their backside bite them.

It's not an artefact. It's an actual thingy. I wonder how it came into being, looking so distinct as a ring, yet so near a huge force. Or maybe it's not as near as it looks and maybe it's an object not created by the same event or circumstance as NGC371.
As to what element it might be I don't know. In more common colour processing it looks turquoise. Iron?

Here's one I couldn't find the original from, so no artist credits showing the same distinct ring very well http://s1.1zoom.me/big0/850/Stars_NG...346_500951.jpg
And this one shows it's turquoise shade but the ring form is lost. https://farm3.static.flickr.com/2873...b0f8e99d_b.jpg

Intriguing. Quite overwhelming how looking at [your] images it makes me NEED to know science facts re cause, effect and elements. That I have no knowledge makes me want to scream like a toddler in frustration. Anyone else get that emotion?

Very well researched. That will larn me! Of course it has to be real, because of the way we took the image as three very distinct frames, and it is in all of them! I discounted it because it looked so special.

Don Goldman (who makes the 3nM filters we use) took a very fine shot which shows it. He's even annotated it with the catalogue number E0102. The fact that it is intensely blue means it showed up in our OIII filter but not in our H-alpha filter. That it is very tiny and very bright in OIII suggests that it's something that happened very violently and very recently. The first thing that comes to mind is the young remnant of a supernova explosion. If it were very nearby one might think of a Wolf Rayet nebula (like Herschel's ring) or a planetary nebula (like the Ring nebula in Lyra), but I'm sticking my neck out and guessing it's too bright for and too pure in OIII for a WR, and far too big and bright to be a PN in another galaxy, but as you so poetically said, one ring to fool them all and in the backside bite 'em.

Once again, thanks so much for having a very close look at it.

STOP PRESS POSTSCRIPT: Googling E0102 reveals it is indeed a supernova remnant!!!

How about that !!!

Originally Posted by Andy01

Another crackerjack image M&T - you've off shown the hidden beauty within the SMC and unveiled all of it's treasures - very nicely done!

Thanks Andy, that's beautifully put.

Originally Posted by cometcatcher

Just beautiful!

Thanks Kevin!

Originally Posted by multiweb

Top shot Mike. I can see everything but the fish.

I think it's time to start lobbying for the green again. Vive le vert!

Thanks muchly Marc for the support on multiple fronts!

… "She's the most distressful galaxy
That ever yet was seen;
They're hanging men and women there
For wearing of the green


(Mike's maternal grandfather was, horror of horrors, a loyal Orangeman. More distantly on his paternal grandfather's side were the Moriarty's, who may or may not have been green. The Berthon clan were of course French Huguenots who were definitely not green, and were the bad guys in the movie Versailles, although one of them did make astronomical instruments. The Jones lot were Welsh of no repute at all and well out of it. But most of his genes seem to have come from his great great great grandfather on his father's mother's side, who was Greek and struck not green but gold at Ophir, not far from Placidus.)