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NGC 3379
Messier 105 or M105, also known as NGC 3379, is an elliptical galaxy 36.6 million light-years away in the equatorial constellation of Leo. It is the biggest elliptical galaxy in the Messier catalogue that is not in the Virgo cluster. It was discovered by Pierre Méchain in 1781, just a few days after he discovered the nearby galaxies Messier 95 and Messier 96. This galaxy is one of a few not object-verified by Messier so omitted in the editions of his Catalogue of his era. It was appended when Helen S. Hogg found a letter by Méchain locating and describing this object which matched those aspects under its first-published name, NGC 3379. It has a morphological classification of E1, indicating a standard elliptical galaxy with a flattening of 10%. The major axis is aligned along a position angle of 71°. Isophotes of the galaxy are near perfect ellipses, twisting no more than 5° out of alignment, with changes in ellipticity of no more than 0.06. There is no fine structur ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Messier Catalogue
The Messier objects are a set of 110 astronomical objects catalogued by the French astronomer Charles Messier in his ''Catalogue des Nébuleuses et des Amas d'Étoiles'' (''Catalogue of Nebulae and Star Clusters''). Because Messier was only interested in finding comets, he created a list of those non-comet objects that frustrated his hunt for them. The compilation of this list, in collaboration with his assistant Pierre Méchain, is known as ''the Messier catalogue''. This catalogue of objects is one of the most famous lists of astronomical objects, and many Messier objects are still referenced by their Messier numbers. The catalogue includes most of the astronomical deep-sky objects that can easily be observed from Earth's Northern Hemisphere; many Messier objects are popular targets for amateur astronomers. A preliminary version first appeared in 1774 in the ''Memoirs'' of the French Academy of Sciences for the year 1771. The first version of Messier's catalogue contain ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Messier Catalogue
The Messier objects are a set of 110 astronomical objects catalogued by the French astronomer Charles Messier in his ''Catalogue des Nébuleuses et des Amas d'Étoiles'' (''Catalogue of Nebulae and Star Clusters''). Because Messier was only interested in finding comets, he created a list of those non-comet objects that frustrated his hunt for them. The compilation of this list, in collaboration with his assistant Pierre Méchain, is known as ''the Messier catalogue''. This catalogue of objects is one of the most famous lists of astronomical objects, and many Messier objects are still referenced by their Messier numbers. The catalogue includes most of the astronomical deep-sky objects that can easily be observed from Earth's Northern Hemisphere; many Messier objects are popular targets for amateur astronomers. A preliminary version first appeared in 1774 in the ''Memoirs'' of the French Academy of Sciences for the year 1771. The first version of Messier's catalogue contain ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Star
A star is an astronomical object comprising a luminous spheroid of plasma (physics), plasma held together by its gravity. The List of nearest stars and brown dwarfs, nearest star to Earth is the Sun. Many other stars are visible to the naked eye at night sky, night, but their immense distances from Earth make them appear as fixed stars, fixed points of light. The most prominent stars have been categorised into constellations and asterism (astronomy), asterisms, and many of the brightest stars have proper names. Astronomers have assembled star catalogues that identify the known stars and provide standardized stellar designations. The observable universe contains an estimated to stars. Only about 4,000 of these stars are visible to the naked eye, all within the Milky Way galaxy. A star's life star formation, begins with the gravitational collapse of a gaseous nebula of material composed primarily of hydrogen, along with helium and trace amounts of heavier elements. Its stellar ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
H II Region
An H II region or HII region is a region of interstellar atomic hydrogen that is ionized. It is typically in a molecular cloud of partially ionized gas in which star formation has recently taken place, with a size ranging from one to hundreds of light years, and density from a few to about a million particles per cubic centimetre. The Orion Nebula, now known to be an H II region, was observed in 1610 by Nicolas-Claude Fabri de Peiresc by telescope, the first such object discovered. The regions may be of any shape because the distribution of the stars and gas inside them is irregular. Hertzsprung-Russell diagram, The short-lived blue stars created in these regions emit copious amounts of ultraviolet light that ionize the surrounding gas. H II regions—sometimes several hundred light-years across—are often associated with giant molecular clouds. They often appear clumpy and filamentary, sometimes showing intricate shapes such as the Horsehead Nebula. H II regio ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Emission Line
A spectral line is a dark or bright line in an otherwise uniform and continuous spectrum, resulting from emission or absorption of light in a narrow frequency range, compared with the nearby frequencies. Spectral lines are often used to identify atoms and molecules. These "fingerprints" can be compared to the previously collected ones of atoms and molecules, and are thus used to identify the atomic and molecular components of stars and planets, which would otherwise be impossible. Types of line spectra Spectral lines are the result of interaction between a quantum system (usually atoms, but sometimes molecules or atomic nucleus, atomic nuclei) and a single photon. When a photon has about the right amount of photon energy, energy (which is connected to its frequency) to allow a change in the energy state of the system (in the case of an atom this is usually an electron changing Electron configuration, orbitals), the photon is absorbed. Then the energy will be spontaneously ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
H-alpha
H-alpha (Hα) is a specific deep-red visible spectral line in the Balmer series with a wavelength of 656.28 nm in air and 656.46 nm in vacuum; it occurs when a hydrogen electron falls from its third to second lowest energy level. H-alpha light is the brightest hydrogen line in the visible spectral range. It is important to astronomers as it is emitted by many emission nebulae and can be used to observe features in the Sun's atmosphere, including solar prominences and the chromosphere. Balmer series According to the Bohr model of the atom, electrons exist in quantized energy levels surrounding the atom's nucleus. These energy levels are described by the principal quantum number ''n'' = 1, 2, 3, ... . Electrons may only exist in these states, and may only transit between these states. The set of transitions from ''n'' ≥ 3 to ''n'' = 2 is called the Balmer series and its members are named sequentially by Greek letters: *''n'' = 3 to ''n'' = 2 is called Balmer-alpha ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
LINER
A low-ionization nuclear emission-line region (LINER) is a type of galactic nucleus that is defined by its spectral line emission. The spectra typically include line emission from weakly ionized or neutral atoms, such as O, O+, N+, and S+. Conversely, the spectral line emission from strongly ionized atoms, such as O++, Ne++, and He+, is relatively weak. The class of galactic nuclei was first identified by Timothy Heckman in the third of a series of papers on the spectra of galactic nuclei that were published in 1980. Demographics of LINER galaxies Galaxies that contain LINERs are often referred to as ''LINER galaxies''. LINER galaxies are very common; approximately one-third of all nearby galaxies (galaxies within approximately 20-40 Mpc) may be classified as LINER galaxies. Approximately 75% of LINER galaxies are either elliptical galaxies, lenticular galaxies, or S0/a-Sab galaxies (spiral galaxies with large bulges and tightly wound spiral arms). LINERs are f ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Active Galactic Nucleus
An active galactic nucleus (AGN) is a compact region at the center of a galaxy that has a much-higher-than-normal luminosity over at least some portion of the electromagnetic spectrum with characteristics indicating that the luminosity is not produced by stars. Such excess non-stellar emission has been observed in the radio, microwave, infrared, optical, ultra-violet, X-ray and gamma ray wavebands. A galaxy hosting an AGN is called an "active galaxy". The non-stellar radiation from an AGN is theorized to result from the accretion of matter by a supermassive black hole at the center of its host galaxy. Active galactic nuclei are the most luminous persistent sources of electromagnetic radiation in the universe, and as such can be used as a means of discovering distant objects; their evolution as a function of cosmic time also puts constraints on models of the cosmos. The observed characteristics of an AGN depend on several properties such as the mass of the central black hole, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Supermassive Black Hole
A supermassive black hole (SMBH or sometimes SBH) is the largest type of black hole, with its mass being on the order of hundreds of thousands, or millions to billions of times the mass of the Sun (). Black holes are a class of astronomical objects that have undergone gravitational collapse, leaving behind spheroidal regions of space from which nothing can escape, not even light. Observational evidence indicates that almost every large galaxy has a supermassive black hole at its Central massive object, center. For example, the Milky Way has a Galactic Center#Supermassive black hole, supermassive black hole in its Galactic Center, corresponding to the Astronomical radio source, radio source Sagittarius A*. Accretion (astrophysics), Accretion of Interstellar medium, interstellar gas onto supermassive black holes is the process responsible for powering Active galactic nucleus, active galactic nuclei (AGNs) and quasars. Two supermassive black holes have been directly imaged by the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ellipticity
Flattening is a measure of the compression of a circle or sphere along a diameter to form an ellipse or an ellipsoid of revolution (spheroid) respectively. Other terms used are ellipticity, or oblateness. The usual notation for flattening is and its definition in terms of the semi-axes of the resulting ellipse or ellipsoid is :: \mathrm = f =\frac . The ''compression factor'' is \frac\,\! in each case; for the ellipse, this is also its aspect ratio. Definitions There are three variants of flattening; when it is necessary to avoid confusion, the main flattening is called the first flattening.Torge, W. (2001). ''Geodesy'' (3rd edition). de Gruyter. and online web textsOsborne, P. (2008). The Mercator Projections'' Chapter 5.Rapp, Richard H. (1991). ''Geometric Geodesy, Part I''. Dept. of Geodetic Science and Surveying, Ohio State Univ., Columbus, Ohio/ref> In the following, is the larger dimension (e.g. semimajor axis), whereas is the smaller (semiminor axis). All flatt ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Isophote
In geometry, an isophote is a curve on an illuminated surface that connects points of equal brightness. One supposes that the illumination is done by parallel light and the brightness is measured by the following scalar product: :b(P)= \vec n(P)\cdot \vec v=\cos\varphi where is the unit normal vector of the surface at point and the unit vector of the light's direction. If , i.e. the light is perpendicular to the surface normal, then point is a point of the surface silhouette observed in direction Brightness 1 means that the light vector is perpendicular to the surface. A plane has no isophotes, because every point has the same brightness. In astronomy, an isophote is a curve on a photo connecting points of equal brightness. J. Binney, M. Merrifield: ''Galactic Astronomy'', Princeton University Press, 1998, , p. 178. Application and example In computer-aided design, isophotes are used for checking optically the smoothness of surface connections. For a surface (implicit or ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Position Angle
In astronomy, position angle (usually abbreviated PA) is the convention for measuring angles on the sky. The International Astronomical Union defines it as the angle measured relative to the north celestial pole (NCP), turning positive into the direction of the right ascension. In the standard (non-flipped) images, this is a counterclockwise measure relative to the axis into the direction of positive declination. In the case of observed visual binary stars, it is defined as the angular offset of the secondary star from the primary relative to the north celestial pole. As the example illustrates, if one were observing a hypothetical binary star with a PA of 135°, that means an imaginary line in the eyepiece drawn from the north celestial pole to the primary (P) would be offset from the secondary (S) such that the angle would be 135°. When graphing visual binaries, the NCP is, as in the illustration, normally drawn from the center point (origin) that is the Primary downward&nd ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
