The Milky Way around 11 hours now with 4 hours of infrared added

[Camknox (Cameron)]

Oh My! Wow! There's not much else I can really say here. Superb image!

[dvj (John)]

I'm blinded!

[gregbradley]

Originally Posted by madbadgalaxyman

This one seems to me to be the best candidate for a genuine Vertical Dust Chimney on Greg's exposure:

Attachment 147685



If that is the NGC 6231 / Scorpius OB1 complex in the mid-plane of the Milky Way beneath the dust chimney, then this would be a plausible candidate for the source of one or more energetic events that could project dust and gas far above the plane of the Milky Way; this is a very large concentration of supermassive stars, and it could well have hosted one or more supernovae.

Great detective work. It sounds plausible.

Originally Posted by Camknox

Oh My! Wow! There's not much else I can really say here. Superb image!

Thanks very much for that.

Originally Posted by dvj

I'm blinded!

Cheers John.

Greg.

[dutch2 (Ingrid)]

Stunning image, just gorgeous colours.
Very impressive sight.

[madbadgalaxyman (Robert)]

Hi Greg,
Here is what Bo Reipurth says about NGC 6231 and the surrounding association of O and B stars in the "Handbook of Star Forming Regions" (which is the Bible for detailed information about nearby star forming regions).



There is plenty of scope for previous and future supernovae in this remarkable concentration of massive and luminous stars.

cheers, Robert

[gregbradley]

Originally Posted by madbadgalaxyman

Hi Greg,
Here is what Bo Reipurth says about NGC 6231 and the surrounding association of O and B stars in the "Handbook of Star Forming Regions" (which is the Bible for detailed information about nearby star forming regions).

Attachment 147719

There is plenty of scope for previous and future supernovae in this remarkable concentration of massive and luminous stars.

cheers, Robert

Thanks Robert. It certainly sounds like what is happening there.

Originally Posted by dutch2

Stunning image, just gorgeous colours.
Very impressive sight.

Thank you for the nice compliment. The Milky Way at a dark site is the most impressive sight in the Southern Skies. I hope I did some justice to this magnificent view we get.

Greg.

[gregbradley]

I added 4 hours of infrared to this image. It was 3 x 90minutes of 3 panels formed into a mosaic and added to the main image. Not a massive difference but it did add to some new areas.

http://upload.pbase.com/image/152348475 regular

http://upload.pbase.com/gregbradley/...48475/original large

I have a 20 hour + CCD version of this Milky Way panorama I'll post next week.

Greg.

[madbadgalaxyman (Robert)]

Mad Galaxy Man previously wrote:
This one seems to me to be the best candidate for a genuine Vertical Dust Chimney on Greg's exposure:

Attachment 147685

If that is the NGC 6231 / Scorpius OB1 complex in the mid-plane of the Milky Way beneath the dust chimney, then this would be a plausible candidate for the source of one or more energetic events that could project dust and gas far above the plane of the Milky Way; this is a very large concentration of supermassive stars, and it could well have hosted one or more supernovae.

Originally Posted by gregbradley

Great detective work. It sounds plausible.
Greg.

Greg,

Bad galaxy man's further cogitations:

It looks like the RCW108 (Ara OB1) star-forming complex (associated with a two degree scale HII region that looks like a ghostly version of Eta Car. Nebula) is also aligned with the hypothetical dust ejection in a dust chimney, but this OB association is currently very much less active than the NGC 6231 complex (see: 2005, A&A, 433, 955).

The appearance of the very-large-scale giant dust rift ("equatorial dust band") on the Scutum side of the Milky Way looks very different from the appearance of this dust chimney. This vertical "dust chimney" could be a feature that exits at (very roughly) a right angle to the plane of the Milky Way Galaxy, which could indicate ejection of gas in this direction, while (in contrast) the gigantic dust rift on the other side could conceivably be bent away from the principal plane of the Milky Way; I am very familiar with a wide variety of bends and warps that are observed in the disks of many spiral galaxies.....in fact, the majority of spiral galaxies are not planar and have some bending of the disk....I have previously discovered that, statistically speaking and looking at the galaxy population as a whole, dust lanes are the most likely features in galaxies to be bent away from the principal plane by tidal forces.

Given that deep imaging surveys of our own Galaxy by professional astronomers often limit themselves to fields that are near to the plane of the Milky Way, your deep exposures of the band of the Milky Way give a unique perspective; there is always a potential for discoveries far from the principal plane, as the focus of professional astronomers' attention seems to be the plane itself.

On the whole I would say that the "vertical" dust chimney morphology in our own Galaxy is less pronounced than in some other spiral galaxies where this dust morphology is very obvious; in general, non-dwarf spiral galaxies with a higher rate of massive star formation tend to have more of the "vertical" dust chimneys and plumes. A classic case of a disk with a higher star formation rate than the Milky Way Galaxy is NGC 891, and NGC 891 has impressive dust structures at right angles to its plane.

Nick Risinger's impressive 360 degree image of the Milky Way may perhaps provide a further perspective on the dust which at least apparently extends far away from the plane of our Galaxy;

http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap110520.html

Looking at the entire band of the Milky Way seems to put the size of the dust features into perspective.
Considering the Milky Way band as a spiral galaxy in its entirety, the Milky Way is obviously a small-bulged galaxy with a thin disk, but I do agree with you that there is evidence for dust stretching a long way from its plane.

Best Regards,
Robert Lang

[SkyViking (Rolf)]

That looks stunning Greg - can't decide if I like the version best with or without IR, they are both great

[madbadgalaxyman (Robert)]

Greg,

If you will excuse this attempt, I have tried to emphasize the High Galactic Latitude (far above the plane of the galaxy) dust features by changing the contrast and brightness of your jpg image.
I have deliberately degraded the resolution to emphasize large-scale dust features and I have also applied an unsharp mask.

The difference in structure between the great rift and the hypothetical dust chimney is very obvious:



For comparison, here is an image of NGC 891, which shows numerous vertical dust plumes or chimneys:

[marco (Marco Lorenzi)]

Wow Greg, a very dramatic image indeed! Congratulation on the perseverance and for having a different approach also using the IR data
Clear Skies
Marco

[gregbradley]

Originally Posted by madbadgalaxyman

Mad Galaxy Man previously wrote:
This one seems to me to be the best candidate for a genuine Vertical Dust Chimney on Greg's exposure:

Attachment 147685

If that is the NGC 6231 / Scorpius OB1 complex in the mid-plane of the Milky Way beneath the dust chimney, then this would be a plausible candidate for the source of one or more energetic events that could project dust and gas far above the plane of the Milky Way; this is a very large concentration of supermassive stars, and it could well have hosted one or more supernovae.



Greg,

Bad galaxy man's further cogitations:

It looks like the RCW108 (Ara OB1) star-forming complex (associated with a two degree scale HII region that looks like a ghostly version of Eta Car. Nebula) is also aligned with the hypothetical dust ejection in a dust chimney, but this OB association is currently very much less active than the NGC 6231 complex (see: 2005, A&A, 433, 955).

The appearance of the very-large-scale giant dust rift ("equatorial dust band") on the Scutum side of the Milky Way looks very different from the appearance of this dust chimney. This vertical "dust chimney" could be a feature that exits at (very roughly) a right angle to the plane of the Milky Way Galaxy, which could indicate ejection of gas in this direction, while (in contrast) the gigantic dust rift on the other side could conceivably be bent away from the principal plane of the Milky Way; I am very familiar with a wide variety of bends and warps that are observed in the disks of many spiral galaxies.....in fact, the majority of spiral galaxies are not planar and have some bending of the disk....I have previously discovered that, statistically speaking and looking at the galaxy population as a whole, dust lanes are the most likely features in galaxies to be bent away from the principal plane by tidal forces.

Given that deep imaging surveys of our own Galaxy by professional astronomers often limit themselves to fields that are near to the plane of the Milky Way, your deep exposures of the band of the Milky Way give a unique perspective; there is always a potential for discoveries far from the principal plane, as the focus of professional astronomers' attention seems to be the plane itself.

On the whole I would say that the "vertical" dust chimney morphology in our own Galaxy is less pronounced than in some other spiral galaxies where this dust morphology is very obvious; in general, non-dwarf spiral galaxies with a higher rate of massive star formation tend to have more of the "vertical" dust chimneys and plumes. A classic case of a disk with a higher star formation rate than the Milky Way Galaxy is NGC 891, and NGC 891 has impressive dust structures at right angles to its plane.

Nick Risinger's impressive 360 degree image of the Milky Way may perhaps provide a further perspective on the dust which at least apparently extends far away from the plane of our Galaxy;

http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap110520.html

Looking at the entire band of the Milky Way seems to put the size of the dust features into perspective.
Considering the Milky Way band as a spiral galaxy in its entirety, the Milky Way is obviously a small-bulged galaxy with a thin disk, but I do agree with you that there is evidence for dust stretching a long way from its plane.

Best Regards,
Robert Lang

That's good work Robert. Your stretch really makes it obvious the dust is being blown up around the Sagittarius centre bulge area. Quite dramatically as well. I wonder if this has been noted in astronomy works as they often concentrate on heavily magnified views they may miss the broad strokes.

Originally Posted by SkyViking

That looks stunning Greg - can't decide if I like the version best with or without IR, they are both great

Thanks Rolf. The IR adds a bit not a massive amount. I have another MW pano where the IR adds more. It depends on the width of the FOV of the image.

Originally Posted by marco

Wow Greg, a very dramatic image indeed! Congratulation on the perseverance and for having a different approach also using the IR data
Clear Skies
Marco

Thanks Marco. Yes Rolf and Steven have done some work with IR and I thought it would be worth looking at some data for it. It came out more luminous than I expected.

Greg.

[mbaddah (Mo)]

I don't know how many times I've shot the milkyway but never seen it like this ever. All that effort and daring to be different has certainly paid off, well done

[gregbradley]

Originally Posted by mbaddah

I don't know how many times I've shot the milkyway but never seen it like this ever. All that effort and daring to be different has certainly paid off, well done

Thanks Mohammed, that's a nice compliment.

Greg.

[RickS (Rick)]

Greg,

There's a large patch at the lower left that glows more brightly with the IR added. Any idea what that is?

Cheers,
Rick.

[gregbradley]

Originally Posted by RickS

Greg,

There's a large patch at the lower left that glows more brightly with the IR added. Any idea what that is?

Cheers,
Rick.

No I don't know. Also the top right part there are patches of IR brightness that don't show up in Ha or S11. Presumably bright stars behind the dust.

Greg.

[madbadgalaxyman (Robert)]

Greg

I will run this idea of dust and gas exiting away from the plane of the Milky Way (the dark nebulae in our galaxy are essentially tracing the cold molecular hydrogen gas, with a small admixture of dust) past a couple of local astronomers who have done work on supershells and chimneys of gas exiting from the Milky Way; two radio astronomers by the name of Naomi McClure-Griffiths at ATNF and J.R. (Joanne) Dawson at the University of Tasmania.

They mainly do radio astronomy work, involving the detection of the ambient low-density atomic hydrogen gas being swept up into chimneys and expanding supershells by OB stars and supernovae, and they also do some work on the cold molecular gas - which is also done at radio wavelengths. However, the dust distribution as seen at optical wavelengths is also a good tracer of the space distribution of the cold & dense molecular gas.

Much of this work comes under the research heading of the "disk-halo interface", because astronomers are interested in what happens to the gas in the disk component of the Milky Way and other spiral galaxies; some of the interstellar gas definitely exits the plane of a spiral galaxy, and some gas definitely falls back into a spiral galaxy from its halo.

I am not very optimistic about getting much of a detailed answer, as radio astronomers are very peculiar people; many of them that I have corresponded with essentially ignore optical imaging data.....even if it is relevant to the problems they are working on!!

cheers,
Robert

I would absolutely agree with you that the dust could be blown upwards by energy within the interstellar medium (e.g. shock waves). But it is also very commonly seen in galaxies that large-scale dust lanes are bent upwards or downwards from the Galactic Plane by gravitational forces.

[dvj (John)]

Hi Greg,

A favor to ask. Can you post only the IR image? Is this a near-IR filter from AstroDon?

jg

[gregbradley]

Originally Posted by madbadgalaxyman

Greg

I will run this idea of dust and gas exiting away from the plane of the Milky Way (the dark nebulae in our galaxy are essentially tracing the cold molecular hydrogen gas, with a small admixture of dust) past a couple of local astronomers who have done work on supershells and chimneys of gas exiting from the Milky Way; two radio astronomers by the name of Naomi McClure-Griffiths at ATNF and J.R. (Joanne) Dawson at the University of Tasmania.

They mainly do radio astronomy work, involving the detection of the ambient low-density atomic hydrogen gas being swept up into chimneys and expanding supershells by OB stars and supernovae, and they also do some work on the cold molecular gas - which is also done at radio wavelengths. However, the dust distribution as seen at optical wavelengths is also a good tracer of the space distribution of the cold & dense molecular gas.

Much of this work comes under the research heading of the "disk-halo interface", because astronomers are interested in what happens to the gas in the disk component of the Milky Way and other spiral galaxies; some of the interstellar gas definitely exits the plane of a spiral galaxy, and some gas definitely falls back into a spiral galaxy from its halo.

I am not very optimistic about getting much of a detailed answer, as radio astronomers are very peculiar people; many of them that I have corresponded with essentially ignore optical imaging data.....even if it is relevant to the problems they are working on!!

cheers,
Robert

I would absolutely agree with you that the dust could be blown upwards by energy within the interstellar medium (e.g. shock waves). But it is also very commonly seen in galaxies that large-scale dust lanes are bent upwards or downwards from the Galactic Plane by gravitational forces.

That would be great Robert.

Originally Posted by dvj

Hi Greg,

A favor to ask. Can you post only the IR image? Is this a near-IR filter from AstroDon?

jg

720nm Hoya type filter. I can post it soon. I am putting together the CCD version of the image with LRGB.

Greg.

[iceman (Mike)]

That's a stunning image, Greg. The splattered red through it gives it a whole new look. What a ripper!