Tarantula Nebula

[michigander]

Just been reading about the Tarantula Nebula (NGC 2070) in Burnham's Celestial Handbook. It says that if it were as close as the Orion Nebula it would span 30 degrees and have a total brightness 3 times that of Venus! Wow!

It also says that it is the largest known emission nebula in the universe. The book was written in 1978, so they might have found a bigger one by now, but still...

The Burnham's Guides are in 3 huge volumes and provide 2130 pages of cloudy night reading. They make great 'bathroom books'! Picked them up quite cheaply on Amazon.

Dana

[Guest]

I suspect NGC 604 in M33 would give it a run for its money. Most of the astrophysical stuff in Burnhams is long out of date and should be taken witha pinch of salt. 604 is realtievely easily seen with small telescopes and it is kind of cool to see a star forming region on another galaxy.

Owen

[michigander]

Yup, I keep a LARGE salt shaker in the loo just for that reason!

But the poetic and literary quotes will never go out of date.

I especially enjoy the descriptions of objects as seen by Bode, Messier, Herschel, Webb, Admiral Smyth and others over the centuries.

IMHO it's mostly the cosmology that needs revision. Distance estimates, especially for the galactic neighborhood, haven't changed that much, and he does say that NGC604 is about half the size of the Tarantula.

Dana