APOD 1.8

Vista with NGC 2170 (October 15, 2010)

This picture of the day is in the constellation Monoceros. The picture was taken by VISTA (a survey telescope) in near-infrared light.. It shows the bright stars surrounding  the dust and clouds which is where star formation and other young stars are hidden from view. This was interesting because I wasn't sure exactly what a Monoceros was. I thought it was some terrifying Greek mythological creature, but this constellation is actually modern. I learned that a monoceros was associated with a unicorn and had probably come from descriptions of a rhinoceros. I usually knew where most of the constellation's names came from but this was one of the few that I was unsure of, so it was interesting to read about the origin of it's name and what it was. This picture also relates very well to the chapter on telescopes that we just read in class. Seeing a video of the comparison between pictures taken with visible and infrared light gave me a better sense of why astronomers would want to study space in the different spectrums. The pictures that were taken in visible light had a lot of glare and twinkling from the stars. The colors weren't very bright either. With the infrared picture, the glare was greatly reduced so it was easier to get a view of the background and the star-forming region could be seen as orange/red with the colorful streaks coming out. This made me realize what a difference the sectrum made.