View Single Post
  #1  
Old 01-01-2010, 09:38 AM
avandonk's Avatar
avandonk
avandonk

avandonk is offline
 
Join Date: Aug 2005
Location: Melbourne
Posts: 4,786
Apparent and Real Sizes of M42 and Carina Nebulae

It occurred to me I had images of both m42 and Carina taken with the same equipment under very similar conditions. So I used PS to put them together at the same scale.

The Orion Nebula NGC 1976 or M42 is located 1300 light years away and is about 24 light years across.

The Carina Nebula NGC 3372 is located 8800 light years away and is about 460 light years across.

If Carina was at the same distance as M42 it would cover about 20 degrees of sky.

The second image has them at their real relative sizes.

Makes you wonder which should have the label 'great'.

Bert
Attached Thumbnails
Click for full-size image (m42_car_sm.jpg)
162.0 KB106 views
Click for full-size image (car_m42_inset small.jpg)
174.4 KB104 views

Last edited by avandonk; 01-01-2010 at 09:59 AM.
Reply With Quote