THE SOUTHWORTH PLANETARIUM
207-780-4249 www.usm.maine.edu/planet
70 Falmouth Street Portland, Maine 04103
43.6667° N 70.2667° W
Founded January 1970
Julian date: 2457727.16
"Mortal as I am, I know that I am born for a day, but when I
follow the serried multitude of the stars in their circular course, my feet
no longer touch the earth; I ascend to Zeus himself to feast me on
ambrosia, the food of the gods."
-Ptolemy
*THE DAILY ASTRONOMER*
*Wednesday, December 7, 2016*
*Whirlpool and Wild Duck*
One hundred and ten!
That is the number of Messier objects we must explore before we careen
headlong into early August. We shall, come devil or the deep blue sea,
achieve this goal, even if we have to change the Daily Astronomer to the
Hourly Astronomer on August 1st and inundate your inboxes to the point of
rupture. Of course, we don't believe that such a action would ever be
necessary. This ragged old DA space vessel has both fuel and time in high
abundance, so we'll visit each destination in the allotted time.
Today's Messier excursions bring us two particularly beautiful venues:
the "Wild Duck Star Cluster" and the "Whirlpool Galaxy."
First for the flock of ducks!*
*The "Wild Duck Cluster" Located in the constellation Scutum the Shield,*
*this cluster was so named as it resembles a flock of wild ducks in flight.
These "ducks" are merely some of brightest stars within one of our
region's richest and most compact galactic star cluster. Image by
Rawastodata*
The galaxy teems with galactic star clusters: clusters of relatively young
stars gravitationally bound within the galactic arms. These clusters,
such as the Pleiades and Hyades, contain a few hundred members spread out
over a area spanning less than 100 light years. The Wild Duck Cluster
is much richer, with an estimated stellar population of nearly 3000 stars!
It is so bright, in fact, that this cluster is just under naked eye
visibility despite being more than 6,000 light years away! In
comparison, the Pleiades and the Hyades star clusters are 440 light years
153 light years away, respectively.
Though it isn't visible to the unaided eye, one can find the Wild Duck
Cluster with binoculars. Your binoculars are likely more powerful than
the telescope that 17th century German astronomer Gottfried Kirch
(1639-1710) used when he discovered this cluster in 1681. In 1764,
French astronomer Charles Messier included it in his catalog with the
designation M11, meaning 11th entry.
*Finding the "Wild Duck." The Wild Duck Cluster (M11) is technically
within*
*Scutum the Shield, but can be found just south of Aquila the Eagle, the
Summer Triangle's southern constellation. Image by washedoutastronomy.com
<http://washedoutastronomy.com>*
If one is out tonight scanning the skies just south of the Summer Triangle,
be sure to observe the region about eight degrees south of Altair, the
brightest star within Aquila the Eagle, There, lurking within the inky
black of deep space, is a beautiful little flock of wild ducks.
Thirty seven million light years from Earth one finds the beguilingly
beautiful Whirlpool Galaxy. Here one can behold a nearly perfect example
of a pure spiral galaxy, in which spiral arms curl away from a spherical
center so as to lend the entire structure both a vertical and horizontal
symmetry. Astronomers believe that the galaxy's current symmetry is a
result of its interaction with it companion galaxy, NGC 5195. Were one to
observe our own beloved Milky Way from a distance, one would note that the
center is barred, not spherical.) Though it contains more than 100 billion
stars, the Whirlpool Galaxy is only about 45,000 light years in diameter,
less than half the estimated size of the Milky Way. This size is
derived directly from the galaxy's angular dimensions and distance,
recently measured at 23 million light years.
*The Whirlpool Galaxy, or M51, is a beautiful spiral galaxy about 23
million light years from our solar system. We observe the Whirlpool and
its companion NGC5195, a smaller galaxy that *
*will soon become incorporated into M51. (Image: National Optical
Astronomy Observatory)*
When Charles Messier first observed this galaxy in 1773, he discerned very
few features and actually described it as a faint nebula devoid of stars.
However, in 1845, astronomer Lord Rosse (1800-1867) discerned its spiral
structure. It was the first instance in which such spirals were observed
in nebula. However, these nebulae were still then believed to have been
intergalactic objects. Only in the early twentieth century did Edwin
Hubble establish that many of the objects once perceived to have been
inside the Milky Way were actually far outside of it.
We now know that the Universe harbors an abundance of galaxies, the
population of which might even exceed the number of stars within our own
Milky Way. While we cannot see our home galaxy from an external
viewpoint, we can observe other galaxies and from observations of their
structures infer the design of the Milky Way. The Whirlpool provides us
with a very nice, though not precisely accurate, reflection of our own
island Universe.
*Collective nouns are the most beautiful things the English language has
ever produced apart from the phrase "Heat Index Warning." Not only
are they specific to animals, peoples and things, they often change
depending on what the animals or people are doing. When ducks are in
flight, they travel in a "flock," but when they are on the ground, they are
said to be moving in a "brace," or a "badling." A gathering of ducks on
water is said to be in a "team," a "raft" or a "paddling." Makes one
wonder what one could call a collection of pointless footnotes.
© 2016 Edward Gleason