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Dramatic photo shows ominous Cone Nebula like never before

Edmond Dantès

Edmond Dantès

It belongs in a museum!
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Aug 24, 2022
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Alexandria, Egypt
eso2215a.jpg


A dramatic new image of the Cone Nebula shows the pillar-like cloud of cold, star-forming molecular gas and dust in unprecedented detail.
The nebula gets its name from its conical shape and is located in the turbulent, 7-light-year-long region of NGC 2264, which is a site of intense star formation located around 2,500 light-years from Earth.

Because it is relatively close to our planet, the Cone Nebula has been well studied., However, previous images lacked the incredible detail seen in the new observation, made earlier this year by the Very Large Telescope (VLT), located in the Atacama Desert of northern Chile, according to a statement from the European Southern Observatory, which operates the telescope.

In the VLT image, the nebula — which is found in the constellation Monoceros, "The Unicorn" — takes on a dark and impenetrably cloudy appearance, making it look, fittingly, almost like a mythological creature itself.

NASA's Hubblesite colorfully describes the Cone Nebula as "resembling a nightmarish beast rearing its head from a crimson sea."

In the image, captured with the VLT's Focal Reducer/low dispersion Spectrograph 2 (FORS2), hydrogen gas can be seen in blue and sulfur gas in red. Rather than appearing in their usual blue, young stars in the nebula look almost like golden sparkles.
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The Cone Nebula is a striking example of the pillar-like clouds of cold molecular gas and dust that serve as the raw materials for star birth. This pillar shape forms when infant bright-blue stars give off intense ultraviolet radiation and stellar winds that blow material away from their vicinity. As this material shifts, it pushes on gas and dust farther from these young stars, compressing it into dense, tall pillars.

The young stars of NGC 2264 have been eroding material in this region over millions of years, forming the dense and dark Cone Nebula that points away from NGC 2264.

According to Hubblesite , the tendrils of gas in NGC 2264 will eventually erode so much that only the densest regions will remain. These areas of dense gas and dust will become the sites of further star formation and may eventually birth planets.

ESO released the new image of the Cone Nebula to celebrate the 60-year anniversary of its. ESO selected the picture to be released as part of a campaign marking the five countries signing the convention to create the organization, which now has 16 collaborating member states and organizations.
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www.space.com

Dramatic photo shows ominous Cone Nebula like never before

A dramatic new image of the Cone Nebula shows the pillar-like cloud of cold, star-forming molecular gas and dust in unprecedented detail.
www.space.com www.space.com

Location of the Cone Nebula in the constellation of Monoceros:

eso2215b.jpg



Wide-field view of the Cone Nebula region of the sky:

eso2215c.jpg



Hi-res versions:

www.eso.org

ESO’s 60th anniversary image: the Cone Nebula as seen by the VLT

ESO’s 60th anniversary image: the Cone Nebula as seen by the VLT
www.eso.org www.eso.org
www.eso.org

Wide-field view of the Cone Nebula region of the sky

Wide-field view of the Cone Nebula region of the sky
www.eso.org www.eso.org
 

Adventureracing

The Fallen
Nov 7, 2017
8,158
Incredible really. It's also pretty wild seeing it looking so small in that wide shot. All these pictures of the universe just blow my mind.
 
Max|Payne

Max|Payne

Member
Oct 27, 2017
9,090
Portugal
Man, that's so cool.

I have a question tho: When they process these images to have colors, are they attempting to get as close to how it would look if we could look directly at them or is it mostly guesswork or what looks best to show to the public?
 

Brandino

Avenger
Jan 9, 2018
2,116
Maxey said:
Man, that's so cool.

I have a question tho: When they process these images to have colors, are they attempting to get as close to how it would look if we could look directly at them or is it mostly guesswork or what looks best to show to the public?
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I saw another post on this that goes into more detail, but in a nutshell, they find three areas in the UV spectrum that they then shift to the RGB colors in the visible spectrum
 
Golding

Golding

Member
Oct 25, 2017
3,945
Looking at these type of pictures remind me always how small we are in this universe. Crazy
 
Arta

Arta

Banned
Oct 27, 2017
8,445
With the color corrections done to make this visible, these are the equivalent of videogame bullshots, right?
 
DiipuSurotu

DiipuSurotu

Banned
Oct 25, 2017
53,148
Arta said:
With the color corrections done to make this visible, these are the equivalent of videogame bullshots, right?
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Not really. These photos are based on real, objective data. The color correction doesn't actually add or remove any information; it just "downgrades" it to make it visible to our eyes. Our human vision is limited. In a way, it's our vision that's a "bullshot" to begin with.
 
OP
OP
Edmond Dantès

Edmond Dantès

It belongs in a museum!
Member
Aug 24, 2022
5,827
Alexandria, Egypt
Maxey said:
Alright, I see. Does that produce accurate results to what we would see with our naked eye?
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These types images are not what we would see with our eyes. What you see is created from multiple black and white images shot through various filters that isolate certain spectrum, which enhances the detail to a great extent. Then these are assigned to RGB channels that make up the full color image you see. The data is accurate, but the colors aren't.

Here's a more in depth and quite technical explanation on Hubble's image processing which will give you more insight into how these wonderful images are created:

 
Arta

Arta

Banned
Oct 27, 2017
8,445
DiipuSurotu said:
Not really. These photos are based on real, objective data. The color correction doesn't actually add or remove any information; it just "downgrades" it to make it visible to our eyes. Our human vision is limited. In a way, it's our vision that's a "bullshot" to begin with.
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That's an interesting way to put it. :)
 
Truant

Truant

Member
Oct 28, 2017
6,774
Crazy how these impossibly large "structures" probably go unnoticed to whatever lives inside them. It would probably be a lot like living in our own galaxy in terms of the view from most planets.
 
Coyote Starrk

Coyote Starrk

The Fallen
Oct 30, 2017
54,334
Maxey said:
Alright, I see. Does that produce accurate results to what we would see with our naked eye?
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If we were able to see it in the way it's presented maybe. But you have to keep in mind that we are talking about something thousands of light-years in size in the black of space.


Its not something someone can just casually look out of the window of a space ship and see.
 
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