Fine details are revealed in the windblown cloud of dust and gas surrounding a nascent star. LDN (Lynds Catalog of Dark Nebulae) 1471 is a rather large region of dust, and this is just a tiny part where a star is forming. To the lower left and upper right of the star are also some Herbig-Haro objects, which are puffs of matter emitted from the poles of young stellar objects as they accrete matter through the disks surrounding them. Most of the stuff goes into the star, but some of it ends up sent out along the polar axes at some incredible speeds. I have asked how this happens, and apparently it has something to do with magnetic fields. My bank of knowledge is not equipped to understand such topics further.
I have colorized a single near-infrared image that would otherwise be grayscale.
All channels: WFC3/IR F160W
A Snapshot WFC3 IR Survey of Spitzer/Hershel-Identified Protostars in Nearby Molecular Clouds
North is 47.39° counter-clockwise from up.
Tags: YSO young stellar object nebula cloud cone wind LDN dust gas accretion Herbig Haro Herbig-Haro
There are some places we can never go; even if we could, it would never feel like we were there. They are safe from our corruption, but by the gift of light we are able to glimpse them.
This is a small portion of NGC 2023, a piece of the sky I find profoundly beautiful. I have colorized a single near-infrared image that would otherwise be grayscale.
NICMOS Imaging of Protostars in the Orion A Cloud: The Role of Environment in Star Formation
All channels: WFC3/IR F160W
North is 64.50° counter-clockwise from up.
Tags: nebula near-infrared YSO star formation dust gas stars clouds sanctuary
Possibly the most jumbled galaxy I've ever seen.
Establishing HST's Low Redshift Archive of Interacting Systems
All Channels: ACS/WFC F606W
North is 31.21° clockwise from up.
Tags: HST Hubble Prop15446 15446 jumble galaxy interaction tidal tail trainwreck
Spiral galaxy NGC 613 and the search for the progenitor of SN 2016gkg. Pockets of star formation are visible as green nebulas of gas in this near-infrared and visible image. The galaxy's bar is quite distinct and completely within the bounds of the image, but much of the outer arms are not included. I will mark the approximate position of the supernova with a Flickr annotation. I find the circumnuclear ring of star formation to be especially beautiful in this image, though you'll have to zoom in to see it clearly.
I spent a good number of days working on this, which feels incredibly slow compared to the pace I've been keeping with the single filter (grayscale) images of galaxies from the past couple of months. There were a whole lot of cosmic rays to deal with, and I did my best, though there are still a few hiding here and there. I bumped up the saturation a good bit along with the clarity and dust texture of the nucleus.
Data from the following proposal were used to create this image:
The Progenitor of Supernova 2016gkg
Red: ACS/WFC F814W
Green: ACS/WFC F606W
Blue: ACS/WFC F435W
North is 25.19° counter-clockwise from up.
Tags: HST Hubble spiral galaxy barred dust star formation near-infrared visible
What's going on at the center of NGC 5792? A supermassive black hole, maybe. What's up with that dust? Is it really flared out like that, or is this a line of sight trick? And, if it is flared, what's causing it? I'm not really sure.
Data from the following proposal were used to create this image: Addressing a Bias in the Galaxies with Black Hole Mass Measurements
Red: WFC3/IR F160W (50% opacity)
Orange: WFC3/UVIS F814W
Blue: WFC3/UVIS F475W
North is 32.88° counter-clockwise from up.
Tags: dust emission line HST Hubble supermassive black hole