Thread: key-hole nebula
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Old 22-09-2010, 07:32 PM
Rob_K
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Stop me Brian!!

Not "Keyhole", but here's the origin of "Homonculus":

'Now, more than a hundred years after Herschel, Enrique Gaviola was back, taking another careful look at Eta Carinae. For several hours he took two sets of nine images, beginning each set with a one-second exposure and doubling the exposure duration each time until the exposure for his last picture was over four minutes long.
Once developed, these images from 1945 were considered by many the best ever taken of this strange star. They showed what Gaviola humorously dubbed the Homunculus, Latin for “little man,” a kind of Pills-bury Doughboy “with its head pointing northwest, legs opposite and arms folded over a fat body.”'

http://press.princeton.edu/chapters/s8618.html

Cheers -
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