|
|
These are some of the very first CCD images taken with the RMO 0.8-meter
telescope under the control of the new motor system
|
|
This image, taken 9 July 1999, shows a globular cluster in the constellation
Sagittarius. Globular clusters contain approximately 50,000 to
200,000 stars, and are seen surrounding the Milky Way Galaxy in all directions.
Approximately 120 globular clusters are known. It is thought that
these clusters formed along with the Galaxy itself, about 10 to 15 billion
years ago. Many of the stars in globular clusters are quite old;
very little new stars are being formed in these regions.
|
|
This image, taken 12 July 1999, shows the famous Ring Nebula (M57) in
the constellation Lyra. This is a classic example of a planetary nebula,
remnants of a dead star within our own Galaxy. When a lower mass
star, about the size of our own Sun, uses up its supply of hydrogen in
its core, it can no longer sustain the fusion process it needs to hold
the star up against gravitational collapse, so the star begins to contract.
This leads to a tremendous increase in pressure and temperature in the
core, enough for helium fusion to begin. This process produces a tremendous
amount of energy directed outwards, and blows off the star's outer envelope.
We see this envelope as an expanding bubble, up to a light-year or so across.
Within the center is the leftover core of the star, now a collapsed cinder
of mostly carbon, what is normally called a white dwarf.
|
|
This color-enhanced image
shows of the Whirlpool Galaxy (M51) in Canis Venatici taken on 15 July
1999. The spiral shape of this galaxy is thought to be much like
our own Milky Way Galaxy. From our vantage point here on the Earth,
the galaxy appears "face-on", with the bright nucleus in the center and
fainter spiral arms in the disk which seem to eminate away from the nucleus.
The spiral arms in galaxies of this sort are thought to be the result
of an energy wave which rotates through the galaxy; it is along the leading
edge of this wave in which new stars form from the gas and dust clouds
within the disk. Not seen in this image is a smaller irregularly-shaped
companion to M51.
|
|
|
|
These images, taken 22 July 1999, show the various terrains of our or
own Moon. In the first two, a heavily-cratered surface can be seen.
This surface is thought to be somewhat older than other parts of the Moon,
having been formed by meteoric impacts early on in the history of the Solar
System, about 4 billion years ago. The third image shows a much smoother,
less-cratered surface. Areas such as this are thought to have been
formed from oozing lava, somewhat later than the heavily-cratered surface,
about 3.8 billion years ago, when most of the cratering had stopped but
the Moon was still fairly molten on the inside.
|
|
|
