NGC 7538: Oft-Ignored, but Image-Worthy! (Alex Woronow)

NGC 7538: Oft-Ignored, but Image-Worthy!

NGC 7538: Oft-Ignored, but Image-Worthy!

OTA: CDK17
Camera: FLI Proline 16803, 9 micron pixels, 0.64 arcsec/pxl
Observatory: Benard Miller, NM

EXPOSURES:
R: 15 x 900
G: 14 x 900
B: 14 x 900
L: 26 x 1200
H: 17 x 1800
S: 18 x 1800
O: 10 x 1800
Total exposure 34 hours

Image Width: 40 arc-minutes
Processed 2022-2024: PixInsight, Topaz, My Scripts

This rendering uses LSHO modified by removal of the continuum radiation as modeled from the RGB data and removed from the narrowband images. The resulting "purified" narrowband lines were rendered in their approximate true colors.

NGC 7538 hosts a substantial population of Young Stellar Objects, massive protostars, and dense cold clouds likely to condense into massive protostars—13 of which have masses greater than 40 solar masses, and the total cloud mass is estimated to be about 400,000 solar masses.

My image shows the central region to be highly fragmented, as one would expect in an area of such tremendous chaos from star formation and cloud collapse. However, what I also find interesting is that the fragmentation drops off abruptly at the edges of the central cloud into a more tranquil, probably less dense, cloud region. (No masking was done in the processing of this image.) Also, notice at the left and bottom margins of the fragmented region, the structures turn to lie rather concentric to the cloud center. This may indicate the bow shocks propagating outward from star birth/death events in the heart of the nebula. These features and their juxtapositionings, locations, and extents indicate they are not artifacts, but features representative of cloud processes. A further indication that they are not artifacts is that they do not tangle, as physical domains should not, but a random pattern of artifacts is prohibited from doing.

Alex Woronow

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Status	Advanced success
Started	...
Astrometry.net job	9011320
PixInsight job	F499ZR39XTCMODQJACTZY4Y1F0NRLTFY
PixInsight queue size	n/a
PixInsight stage	TASK_LOG

RA (center)	23h14m06s.466
RA (top/left)	23h11m15s.853
RA (top/right)	23h16m46s.943
RA (bottom/right)	23h17m00s.737
RA (bottom/left)	23h11m22s.421

Dec (center)	+61°29′16″.81
Dec (top/left)	+61°09′47″.90
Dec (top/right)	+61°08′35″.82
Dec (bottom/right)	+61°48′31″.17
Dec (bottom/left)	+61°49′44″.51

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