M40: Drab object with glitzy neighbors

[RickJ]

M40 is simply the double star Winnecke 4. The separation has been steadily increasing since Winnecke first measured it at 49.2" in 1863 at a position angle of 88 degrees. Hipparcos in 1991 said 52.8" at 77 degrees. Intermediate measurements show the pair to be separating on a straight line so they are a line of sight pair. There seems to be some discrepancy about their spectral color. Lick Observatory's catalog shows them as G0 and F8 while Brian Skiff says K0III and G0V. Unfortunately my color data is severely distorted by clouds, especially during the red frames. I tried on a second night for new red data only to have clouds again create a problem. Thus I'm not sure about my colors. I did push them too but I seem to see a late G and early F. Looking at other photos on line I see the few color ones showing white and slightly blue though the Sloan Survey image would appear to agree to Brian Skiff's K and G classification. I'm likely too blue with the hotter star.

The main reason for imaging it was I'm trying to get color digital images of all M objects north of 15S. So was going to make a quicky of it but when I saw the two nice galaxies appear in the framing shot I decided to move to a mid point between them and use my normal exposure time. As mentioned, clouds hurt the color data. Another I should revisit.

The barred spiral, NGC 4290 reminds me of "The Eye" galaxy I posted in early May, NGC 3646 in that it has a large ring surrounding a rather normal galaxy, a barred spiral in this case. The inner ring is somewhat distorted with the western side nearly linear rather than circular in shape as the eastern half is.

Assuming a distance of 140 million light-years and a diameter of 2.02 minutes it is only 80,000 light years across, much smaller than NGC 3646. NED and the NGC Project class it as SB(rs)ab: with HII.

The spiral to the west is NGC 4284. It is somewhat further away; 200 million light-years by redshift and a bit further, 225,000 by the average of Tully-Fisher measurements though a measurement by IRAS agrees to the redshift value. At first glance it appears smaller in angular size than NGC 4290 but when the drawn out faint arm pointing toward NGC 4290 is considered it is actually larger at nearly 2.8 minutes. That, using the 200 million light-year distance gives a size of 160,000 light-years or twice that of NGC 4290. It is classed as Sbc by both NED and the NGC project. Except for the faint drawn out arm it is a pretty normal looking, if very large spiral galaxy.

There's a really flat galaxy just under a bright star toward the bottom of the image below NGC 4290. I was hoping to find something on it but NED fails to pick it up and also fails to pick up a much fainter smudge beside it. These are marked by a question mark. Also, a very blue smudge of a galaxy just above a very blue star-like galaxy is also missing from the catalog though the blue star-like one is listed.

The image has several very blue quasars as well.

14" LX200R @ f/10, L=4x10' RGB=2x10' STL-11000XM, Paramount ME

Rick

[dapifo]

Why there are entities (points) with blue color?.... They are entities (points) that do not leave us?

[Hornblower]

Why there are entities (points) with blue color?.... They are entities (points) that do not leave us?

The blue pointlike spots on the image are hot stars. The reddish one labeled M40 is a cooler star.

[dapifo]

OK Thanks...so all blue points are hot stars (or entities) and all red points are cool stars (or entities).

The pictures...have been made from EM waves (light within the range normal)?...or other type of waves (infrared,...)?

[RickJ]

They are entities (points) that do not leave us?

I don't understand your question nor the term "entities". Everything in the image is a quasar (all are labeled "Q"), stars (round points -- bright ones glare into small circles their size increasing with brightness) and galaxies (billions of stars) which are everything else. This area of the sky hasn't been extensively cataloged so many galaxies are still anonymous. With hundreds of billions of them to catalog there are far more anonymous ones than cataloged ones when it comes to the fainter ones. Those I would like more information on but are still not studied are marked by a question mark. We know they are galaxies just not the fine details.

If by "leaving" you mean that since these are all so far away it takes years for their light to reach us, are they still there "now"? I put "now" in quotes as it is a rather meaningless term since Einstein showed that even time and thus "now" is relative and not a static concept. "Now" depends on your reference frame.

Individual stars we see in the image are all in our galaxy and thus within about 50,000 light-years. Main sequence stars like most in the image have lifespans of millions to over one hundred billion years. Every red main sequence (normal) star ever born is still in existence everywhere in the universe as their life span is far greater than the age of the universe. Stars like our sun live some 10 billion years so again, most of them born in the 13.7 billion years of our universe are also still normal stars. Those older than this have turned into white dwarf stars. But those take many billions of years to cool so even they are still rather bright, but small (earth sized) white hot stars. Super massive blue stars (none in the image I'm aware of) do live only a few million years before blowing themselves up. But again, this takes millions of years. No star in the image you see has changed in any significant way nor will it change in any significant way for many centuries to come. Several centuries from now the position of the stars will be seen to have changed as all are in orbit about our galaxy, same as we are. This motion however is very slow unless the star is a very nearby star (again, none in the image are that I'm aware of). So it will take centuries for this motion to be very noticeable without very precise measurement. If Brian Skiff's K0III classification of the redder star in M40 is correct it is a red giant that will in a few million years fade into a white dwarf. But it will still exist, just be a lot fainter and hotter (bluer).

The galaxies close enough to see detail in will rotate so that in say 20 million years they will have rotated about as far around as an hour hand on a clock moves in an hour. That would be the only change you'd notice however. It certainly wouldn't "leave" us in any sense of the word.

That leaves the quasars. Super massive black holes are visible from extreme distances only because lots of matter is falling into them. The early universe was much smaller than today so far denser. Thus there was a lot of matter around the black hole that could fall in. Over the billions of years all matter near a black hole that could be sucked in has been sucked in for the most part. Thus we see no black holes feeding at this rate any more. It is likely that the quasars in this image have faded greatly in the billions of years it took their light to reach us. But they still exist same as the black hole in our galaxy exists. It just isn't being powered by large quantities of infalling matter. Though we see a small gas cloud likely will fall in in a couple years it won't create much visible light though is a much anticipated event. Another issue with these distant quasars is the expansion of the universe itself. The very distant quasars in the image (the one at a light travel distance of 11.5 billion light years for example) is "now" moving away from us due to the universe's expansion at a rate such that, even if it is still emitting light (very doubtful), we'd never see that light as it could never catch up with us. So in a sense that quasar has already "left" but we won't see that happen for many billions of years. Over those billions of years we'll see it get redder in color and fainter until it eventually fades away.

Rick

[RickJ]

The pictures...have been made from EM waves (light within the range normal)?...or other type of waves (infrared,...)?

As stated in the original post: "L=4x10' RGB=2x10'" That means the image itself was taken through a L filter (luminance). Such a filter blocks all UV and IR light as it wouldn't be properly focused by the corrector lens of my telescope. A C filter (not used) on the other hand passes IR light but being glass blocks most UV light. Four 10 minute exposures were used to create the luminance image. It was then colored with two 10 minute images taken by each of the three primary color filters; red, green and blue (6 color filter images in total).

If you look up the data for a STL-11000 on the net you'll find it is very insensitive to UV or IR light. Anyone wishing to work at those wavelengths would use very different sensors.

Rick

Rick

[dapifo]

I don't understand your question nor the term "entities". Everything in the image is a quasar (all are labeled "Q"), stars (round points -- bright ones glare into small circles their size increasing with brightness) and galaxies (billions of stars) which are everything else. This area of the sky hasn't been extensively cataloged so many galaxies are still anonymous. With hundreds of billions of them to catalog there are far more anonymous ones than cataloged ones when it comes to the fainter ones. Those I would like more information on but are still not studied are marked by a question mark. We know they are galaxies just not the fine details.

Ok..it is clear. By entity I meant body (Galaxy, Star, Quasar,...)

If by "leaving" you mean that since these are all so far away it takes years for their light to reach us, are they still there "now"? I put "now" in quotes as it is a rather meaningless term since Einstein showed that even time and thus "now" is relative and not a static concept. "Now" depends on your reference frame.

No, when I reffer to go away I meant that expected that all points in the pictures had to be red because they were moving away...by the Doppler effect (?)

Individual stars we see in the image are all in our galaxy and thus within about 50,000 light-years. Main sequence stars like most in the image have lifespans of millions to over one hundred billion years. Every red main sequence (normal) star ever born is still in existence everywhere in the universe as their life span is far greater than the age of the universe. Stars like our sun live some 10 billion years so again, most of them born in the 13.7 billion years of our universe are also still normal stars. Those older than this have turned into white dwarf stars. But those take many billions of years to cool so even they are still rather bright, but small (earth sized) white hot stars. Super massive blue stars (none in the image I'm aware of) do live only a few million years before blowing themselves up. But again, this takes millions of years. No star in the image you see has changed in any significant way nor will it change in any significant way for many centuries to come. Several centuries from now the position of the stars will be seen to have changed as all are in orbit about our galaxy, same as we are. This motion however is very slow unless the star is a very nearby star (again, none in the image are that I'm aware of). So it will take centuries for this motion to be very noticeable without very precise measurement. If Brian Skiff's K0III classification of the redder star in M40 is correct it is a red giant that will in a few million years fade into a white dwarf. But it will still exist, just be a lot fainter and hotter (bluer).

The galaxies close enough to see detail in will rotate so that in say 20 million years they will have rotated about as far around as an hour hand on a clock moves in an hour. That would be the only change you'd notice however. It certainly wouldn't "leave" us in any sense of the word.

That leaves the quasars. Super massive black holes are visible from extreme distances only because lots of matter is falling into them. The early universe was much smaller than today so far denser. Thus there was a lot of matter around the black hole that could fall in. Over the billions of years all matter near a black hole that could be sucked in has been sucked in for the most part. Thus we see no black holes feeding at this rate any more. It is likely that the quasars in this image have faded greatly in the billions of years it took their light to reach us. But they still exist same as the black hole in our galaxy exists. It just isn't being powered by large quantities of infalling matter. Though we see a small gas cloud likely will fall in in a couple years it won't create much visible light though is a much anticipated event. Another issue with these distant quasars is the expansion of the universe itself. The very distant quasars in the image (the one at a light travel distance of 11.5 billion light years for example) is "now" moving away from us due to the universe's expansion at a rate such that, even if it is still emitting light (very doubtful), we'd never see that light as it could never catch up with us. So in a sense that quasar has already "left" but we won't see that happen for many billions of years. Over those billions of years we'll see it get redder in color and fainter until it eventually fades away.

Rick

Impressive!! ... Thank you very much for your explanations.

David

[Hornblower]

If a hot, blue O or B type star is several billion light years away, the cosmological redshift will make it look more like a reddish M type star. That is, if we had a powerful enough telescope to see one at that range. We can see galaxies that far away, and they should look redder than identical ones up close.

The foreground stars don't have enough velocity either toward or away from us to affect their colors as seen in Rick's image.

[RickJ]

Actually O and B stars emit most of their light in UV so stay blue even at quite high redshifts. Far beyond any range at which we see them.

Reddening from redshift is very rarely seen. Only objects so hot they emit mostly in UV can be seen at distances at which reddening would be evident but they are so blue you can shift their light down to 3 times the wavelength and they still appear blue!

Distant galaxies do sometimes appear reddened but this is due to intergalactic dust not red shift. The distant galaxies in my image however are red because they really are red. Even at say 1.5 billion light years the light is reddened by red shift only about 11%. That is hardly seen by the eye as there is still some light at shorter wavelengths moving down out of UV to replace it. It would only be in the upper part of the UV spectrum that you'd notice a change.

Notice that the quasars in the image all still have a rather blue color, some quite blue. This is because they emit so much UV light even a redshift of over 250% (as is the case for the one at 11.5 billion light years) still has no sign of being red.

Red shift is seen in the spectral lines of the object. Lines that were at 125nm, well into the far UV are now vivid blue and those at 185, still high in UV, are now red. All visible light is now in the IR part of the spectrum as is near UV light. The quasar may be dimmer due to red shift but it is highly unlikely to be redder to our eye. IR telescopes in space at near absolute zero would be needed to study its "visible" light.

So the lines in an objects spectrum move to the red end due to the expansion of the universe but the object usually doesn't appear any redder. Objects fade from view due to distance and the inverse square law before they are significantly seen as being redder due to red shift.

Rick

[dapifo]

OK...thanks...now every thing is more clear, mainly about red shift effect.

Just three strange questions:

- Do you think that some time we will be able to "see" (detect and register) stimuli (waves,...) from outside of Our Known Universe (Our Bobble)?
- If yes, then which could be the best way (system, technology,...) to do it?.. Which stimuli (waves,...) would be necessary to look for, found and detect?
- There is currently any studies or projects in this line of research?

[tusenfem]

dapifo this is just a repeat of the threads that were just closed in both Q&A and ATM.
You will not persue this here, this time you get an infraction.
This line of questioning stops here, please no answers to these "questions."

[dapifo]

I am sorry but the questios are absolutly different!!!... Here I ask very concrete questions that sure Rick could answer.

In the other thread I talk about scales (positives and negatives)...which is a more broader and philosophical issue... that certainly did not get any convincing answer.

I think that the experience of Rick looking and picturing far away space bodies could be very interesting for me on these concrete questions.

Please, let him answer them....

[PetersCreek]

Once again, dapifo, if you have not done so, please read and understand our rules. One of those rules talks about responding to moderator actions. Don't respond/argue/discuss/question moderator actions within the thread. You may report the moderator's post (see my sig line below for instructions) or you may send a private message to any moderator about it.

You really need to get a handle on our rules. If you keep violating them and receive enough infractions points as a result, you will be suspended.