Howdy I'm Nir, my Mineblr is @seventhsession 30, Polyamorous, Queer I have ADHD and Autism I am A very Scattered individual Fandoms: LOTR, Discworld, Red Rising, MSPA, Halo, Mindcrack, LastLife/hermitcraft, Space, Sci-fi/fantasy Novels in general and more!
More astronomy posting! This time! Emission Nebulae.
Emission nebulae are where gas and dust in the galaxy collapses under gravity to form new stars, with new planets around those stars. Each of these objects are in the process of forming solar systems. When especially hot stars are formed in these nebulae, they emit ultraviolet radiation which 'powers' the nebula, and causes it to glow in visible light.
Let's look at the best such nebula in the sky visible from the northern hemisphere: Messier 42, aka The Great Nebula in Orion. It is seen in winter or early spring evenings in the northern hemisphere, or summer and early autumn in the southern hemisphere. (It is near enough to the equator to be visible from most latitudes.)
We'll zoom in starting from binoculars, moving up to a small toy telescope, and then a large 10" reflector.
Text transcription, and more sketches including a beautiful view with a large telescope, below the read-more!
2022-Feb-19 - 09:00 PM EST
M42 - 7x50 (tripod-mounted)
The belt & sword of Orion will both fit into the fov at once, but the edges are too blurry to be worth sketching. The sword is easily defined by 6 bright stars, two of which are in the nebula and correspond to the Trapezium and the "tail" of M42. [by which I meant the three linear bright stars next to the Trapezium] The nebula is faint w/ direct vision but easy & quite broad with averted vision.
The bright stars of the sword just barely fit in the fov, and the nebula is a blurry fuzzy gray blob in direct vision. Trapezium is barely split. W/ averted vision, the boxy part can be seen as a blurry highlight, and the wings can be glimpsed, as well as M43 nebula.
The wings are these sort of branching structures you sometimes see in M42, especially with averted vision. I assure you the wings are not for spaceflight, they're purely decorative. (that joke kills at public observing sessions)
These sketches are made with black pencil on white paper, while looking through the eyepiece of binoculars and telescopes. The drawings were then digitally inverted. The goal in DSO sketching is to produce an image without embellishment that reproduces the detail that you were able to detect in the eyepiece. Thus, astronomy sketches are the most realistic depictions of what it looks like to look through a telescope. The one caveat is that an experienced observer will be able to see more than a novice, and detail that was at the very limit of detection may be represented by features which are still fairly easy to see on the drawing.
This is to-date probably the best, most accurate, and most detailed sketch of a deep-sky-object I have ever done by looking through a telescope. It was seen with a 10" Newtonian reflector under suburban light polluted skies. I have seen the nebula even better under darker skies, but my sketches are generally more rudimentary when I do dark sky trips, since I'm trying to get as much done as I can. Note that compared to the last two images, which were taken with prisms to erect the image, this view through a Newtonian reflector telescope is rotated 'upside down.'
2022-Feb-19-09:54 PM EST
M42 - 250P - 11mm 82° - UHC Filter (109x)
Trapezium easily split. Fifth star [the "E" star] faintly visible [w/o UHC filter; with the UHC filter it was too dim]. There is a sharp-edged boxy region with some visible mottling at the center of the nebula. A fainter glow creates the "head" and "plumage" of a bird-like figure, with the wings extending at east and west, with a great extent in averted vision. One wing, the eastern one, is bifurcated. M43 is faint but visible in direct vision and appears almost cometary, with a fat tail facing M42.
Here is a sketch of M42 seen with a 90mm aperture Maksutov-Cassegrain called a Celestron C90. It's a step up from the Mak60, but the wings are much more indistinct.
Here's another view of the nebula with a 10" Dobsonian, in essentially the same conditions as the one above, just spending a little less time getting the details right. In some ways this impression is a little more realistic, in terms of what you're actually likely to see.
Here are two summer sky treats in Sagittarius. Messier 8 (the Lagoon Nebula) and Messier 20 (the Trifid Nebula). M21 is an open star cluster.
This drawing was done with a 76mm aperture toy tabletop dobsonian called the Celestron FirstScope.
Here are two sketches from two different nights in 2020 of the Messier 17 Swan Nebula in Sagittarius, seen with a 6" Dobsonian reflector. And here's a nicer sketch from 2021-July-4, with a 10" Dobsonian.
A bright fuzzy bar in a fairly rich star field, not far from the sagittarius star cloud. A dimmer spur comes off the southwest side, looping slightly so it resembles a swan's craned head. Very subtle "wings" are visible as puffs of nebulosity smeared out to the southeast.
And here is the Eagle Nebula. The famous Pillars of Creation are within this nebula, though they are unattainable targets to the visual observer.
M16 - Eagle Nebula
10" f/5 Dobsonian, 32mm Plossl, UHC filter
It took me a while to figure out that I had already found it, that the whole time I was trying to find it by star hopping off of what i thought was a nearby cluster, I was leaving M16 itself the whole time. The nebula is very dim, especially by Messier standards, requiring a UHC filter to even see, and really rewarding averted vision. The brightness is quite exaggerated in my drawing, or else you wouldn't be able to see it on your screen. No chance of seeing the pillars of creation, hah!
Many famous nebulae like the Horsehead for example are not really visible because their surface brightness is just too low. They would require absurdly large aperture telescopes (16" minimum) under perfectly dark skies.
For some reason I can't find a digital scan of my 2021 10" dob sketch of Messier 8. Maybe I'll go crack open the ol' log book and try and find it later.
but maybe a better strategy would be to suggest another fandom with a better reputation but similar vibes to what Harry Potter fans like about Harry Potter (ranging from that kind of coming-of-age narrative to a sorting system people can "make their whole personality"/world that one can easily insert themselves into) and that people read/watch/play that instead as the people you're trying to convince are just gonna be turned off by your negativity
hi, i was a harry potter fan from the ages of 6-28, if anyone understands how hard it is to emotionally move on from this specific beloved childhood franchise and cultural phenomenon it would be me.
it's been 6 years since j.k rowling started doubling down on her transphobia. (if we mark her mask off moment as her 2020 posting)
people have had six years to come to terms with it and find alternatives, there have been multiple video essays podcasts and written journalism about all of this, there are so many lists of alternatives including contemporary to the series and current fiction. even as early as 2022 people were renaming real world social groups/sport formed around their hp fandom to distance themselves from her work.
i wasn't even particularly negative, i said "stop spending money here" that's neither critical to the source material nor the fans. and not spending money isn't even an active action it's passive inaction, very easy to do.
also as someone who grew up with the book phenomenon and the films, you cannot reproduce the phenomenon that it used to be. you can find other things that give you joy but that was a very specific pop cultural time and event. the new show not only funds the cultural relevance of and bigoted political actions of rowling, it's also just inherently flawed in conception as a work of nostalgia that will always fall short in both quality, phenomena, and fandom culture.
I'm not coddling adults or teens who are tempted to engage with hp because i respect that they have the capacity to change their minds and expand their own tastes. it's not my responsibility to spoon-feed people alternatives.
I'm saying stop giving her money
i'm saying stop giving the franchise cultural currency via streaming attention
i'm saying the real people who are being made unsafe due to the transphobia and racism of j.k rowling are and always will be more important than nostalgia and fandom
I sound harsh because i was being blunt, if that comes off as negativity that puts some people off then that's okay.
there are much more hand holding options out there, (i myself watched a few video essays years ago deconstructing the bigotry of the novels and the messy relationship between fandom on identity and fiction versus personal ethics. because i needed discussions to process my own personal emotional response to letting the franchise go)
but with my own post I would hope that at least some people go "actually yeah this isn't worth my time and money" about the new show.
because it's okay to feel some negative emotions if it reminds you not to do something you actually feel is wrong.
ultimately @thewickedbohemian it's okay that you don't like my two sentence post as an approach to addressing the entire harry potter fandom. I would encourage you to visit/revisit any works that make you feel the same kind of magic that people are looking for and compile a list yourself to share, it's a good exercise and does help give people a place to start. it's not something i did with this post, it can be something you do with your own post, feel free to tag me in it and i'll reblog.
but again, i'll say it:
"STOP GIVING THE WORKS OF JK ROWLING TIME AND MONEY"
"DO NOT HATEWATCH"
Soccer players are the horses of men’s sports. They run around in fields for hours on end. They stub their toe and they die. They fall and they die. They run into each other and
just tried to reference the xkcd "today's lucky 10,000" comic but I wanted to explain xkcd first, so I was like "you probably know the one about experts in the field overestimating their audience's familiarity with the subject matter" and uh. he didn't. love me some irony
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