StarStuff

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About Me

Hi, I'm Stuart Gary, I'm a journalist and broadcaster with the Australian Broadcasting Corporation. I love science, especially the majesty and wonder of space, so I put together a weekly astronomy show for the ABC called StarStuff.

In my spare time I like to fly planes, practice karate and pistol target shooting and play around with my cars, a twin Turbocharged Falcon GT Interceptor and a DeTomaso Pantera GTS.

I’m vegan, a life member of the RSPCA and a supporter of several animal welfare organisations.

My other great passion is music which is understandable when you realise that I was a radio music jock long before I became a journalist. My record library contains tens of thousands of singles, albums, videos, CD’s and DVDs. These days that’s all stored in an 8 terabyte raid enclosure linked to a desk top PC at home. My tastes range from rock and grunge through to trance and new romantics. At the moment I’m listening to heaps of MGMT, William Control, Hawthorne Heights and Short Shack, but I have lots of time for the classics like Placebo and the early stuff from Silverchair, In fact Neon Ballroom is still my favourite album, and Emotion Sickness is still one of my two favourite songs (the other being William Control’s Death Club).

StarStuff is a great name for the show, but it works on more levels than just astronomy, it’s really cool for any science program because everything in the universe after the quark gluon plasma of the big bang is star stuff even the iron which makes your blood red was manufactured in the supernova explosions of stars. Carl Sagan said it best, we are all star stuff.


This blog is designed to allow me to publish all the things which can’t fit into StarStuff. There’s heaps of really interesting stuff out there and only a half hour window for the show, so each week becomes a battle to try and squeeze it all in. This blog lets me do that.

You can check out the show at the offical ABC StarStuff website:
http://www.abc.net.au/science/starstuff/

There's also an official ABC StarStuff Twitter feed: @abcstarstuff

And an official ABC Science website: http://www.abc.net.au/science/


The legal stuff: This is my personal blog. The views expressed in this blog are those of me only and not the Australian Broadcasting Corporation or its management. I do not claim ownership of any of the media in this blog. where possible credit and or source will always be given. If one of your photos or other media is submitted in this blog and you would like it removed please let me know.

Blogs I follow:

Theme by: Miguel
  1. A PANORAMIC LOOP IN CYGNUS As an end of the year finale, the National Optical Astronomy Observatory (NOAO) and WIYN partners offer this new wide-field image of the Cygnus loop. Three degrees on a side, this image covers an area of the sky about 45 times that of the full Moon. But it does so without sacrificing high resolution. The image is over 600 million pixels in size, making it one of the largest astronomical images ever made. The Cygnus Loop is a large supernova remnant: the gaseous remains of a massive star that exploded long ago. It is located about 1,500 light-years from Earth in the direction of the constellation Cygnus, the Swan. Astronomers estimate the supernova explosion that produced the nebula occurred between 5,000 and 10,000 years ago. First noted in 1784 by William Herschel, it is so large that its many parts have been catalogued as separate objects, including NGC 6992, NGC 6995 and IC 1340 along the eastern (left) side of the image, NGC 6974 and NGC 6979 near the top-center, and the Veil Nebula (NGC 6960) and Pickering’s Triangle along the western (right) edge. The bright star near the western edge of the image, known as 52 Cygnus, is not associated with the supernova. The data were obtained with the NOAO Mosaic 1 camera, with observations in the oxygen [OIII] (blue), sulphur [S II] (green) and hydrogen-alpha (red) filters. When mounted on the WIYN 0.9 meter telescope the Mosaic camera has a one square degree field of view. The Cygnus Loop was observed with nine separate telescope pointings in a 3x3 grid pattern. The observations were originally obtained in 2003 by Richard Cool, while he was a graduate student at the University of Arizona, as part of a project to precisely measure the distance to the Cygnus Loop. Dr. Cool, now at the MMT Observatory in Arizona, said, “Often, astronomical research reduces images to dry tables of numerical information that we analyze in order to more deeply understand our universe. Images like this are amazing because they can remind you of the big picture and beauty that surrounds us”. In 2003 the computing power available was insufficient to process the data into a single, full-resolution color image. Nine years later, the data were re-reduced and processed by Travis Rector to create the image presented here. Dr. Rector has produced a remarkable series of color images from NOAO telescopes. They can be found at his website (http://aftar.uaa.alaska.edu/) and on a dedicated NOAO image gallery page: http://www.noao.edu/image_gallery/rector.html Images like this demonstrate that even relatively small telescopes when equipped with modern cameras are capable of producing cutting-edge research. The 0.9 meter telescope at Kitt Peak is operated by the WIYN Consortium( http://www.noao.edu/0.9m/index.html). It has been in operation since 1960, when the original telescope was first installed at the site now occupied by the WIYN 3.5 meter telescope. Today, the 0.9 meter is regularly used by graduate students and faculty for a variety of research projects. IMAGE….This image was obtained with the wide-field view of the Mosaic camera on the WIYN 0.9-meter telescope on Kitt Peak, Arizona. It shows faint filaments that are part of a large supernova remnant called the Cygnus Loop. The Cygnus Loop is a giant supernova remnant. It is the remains of a star that exploded 5000 to 10,000 years ago. The distance to it is estimated at about 1500 light years. Because of its immense size, it contains several individually named objects, including NGC 6992 and IC 1340 on the left side as well as NGC 6960 and Pickering’s Triangle on the right. Separate, high-quality images of these four objects can also be found in this gallery. To create this image, nine separate images were taken and stitched together. The full-resolution image is over 600 megapixels in size. It covers an area of the sky that is about 45 times that of the full moon. The image was generated with observations in the Oxygen [OIII] (blue), Sulphur [S II] (green) and Hydrogen-Alpha (orange) filters. In this image, North is up, East is left. SOURCE…T.A. Rector (University of Alaska Anchorage) and WIYN/NOAO/AURA/NSF

    A PANORAMIC LOOP IN CYGNUS

    As an end of the year finale, the National Optical Astronomy Observatory (NOAO) and WIYN partners offer this new wide-field image of the Cygnus loop. Three degrees on a side, this image covers an area of the sky about 45 times that of the full Moon. But it does so without sacrificing high resolution. The image is over 600 million pixels in size, making it one of the largest astronomical images ever made.

    The Cygnus Loop is a large supernova remnant: the gaseous remains of a massive star that exploded long ago. It is located about 1,500 light-years from Earth in the direction of the constellation Cygnus, the Swan. Astronomers estimate the supernova explosion that produced the nebula occurred between 5,000 and 10,000 years ago. First noted in 1784 by William Herschel, it is so large that its many parts have been catalogued as separate objects, including NGC 6992, NGC 6995 and IC 1340 along the eastern (left) side of the image, NGC 6974 and NGC 6979 near the top-center, and the Veil Nebula (NGC 6960) and Pickering’s Triangle along the western (right) edge. The bright star near the western edge of the image, known as 52 Cygnus, is not associated with the supernova.

    The data were obtained with the NOAO Mosaic 1 camera, with observations in the oxygen [OIII] (blue), sulphur [S II] (green) and hydrogen-alpha (red) filters. When mounted on the WIYN 0.9 meter telescope the Mosaic camera has a one square degree field of view. The Cygnus Loop was observed with nine separate telescope pointings in a 3x3 grid pattern.

    The observations were originally obtained in 2003 by Richard Cool, while he was a graduate student at the University of Arizona, as part of a project to precisely measure the distance to the Cygnus Loop. Dr. Cool, now at the MMT Observatory in Arizona, said, “Often, astronomical research reduces images to dry tables of numerical information that we analyze in order to more deeply understand our universe. Images like this are amazing because they can remind you of the big picture and beauty that surrounds us”. In 2003 the computing power available was insufficient to process the data into a single, full-resolution color image. Nine years later, the data were re-reduced and processed by Travis Rector to create the image presented here. Dr. Rector has produced a remarkable series of color images from NOAO telescopes. They can be found at his website (http://aftar.uaa.alaska.edu/) and on a dedicated NOAO image gallery page: http://www.noao.edu/image_gallery/rector.html

    Images like this demonstrate that even relatively small telescopes when equipped with modern cameras are capable of producing cutting-edge research. The 0.9 meter telescope at Kitt Peak is operated by the WIYN Consortium( http://www.noao.edu/0.9m/index.html). It has been in operation since 1960, when the original telescope was first installed at the site now occupied by the WIYN 3.5 meter telescope. Today, the 0.9 meter is regularly used by graduate students and faculty for a variety of research projects.

    IMAGE….This image was obtained with the wide-field view of the Mosaic camera on the WIYN 0.9-meter telescope on Kitt Peak, Arizona. It shows faint filaments that are part of a large supernova remnant called the Cygnus Loop. The Cygnus Loop is a giant supernova remnant. It is the remains of a star that exploded 5000 to 10,000 years ago. The distance to it is estimated at about 1500 light years. Because of its immense size, it contains several individually named objects, including NGC 6992 and IC 1340 on the left side as well as NGC 6960 and Pickering’s Triangle on the right. Separate, high-quality images of these four objects can also be found in this gallery. To create this image, nine separate images were taken and stitched together. The full-resolution image is over 600 megapixels in size. It covers an area of the sky that is about 45 times that of the full moon. The image was generated with observations in the Oxygen [OIII] (blue), Sulphur [S II] (green) and Hydrogen-Alpha (orange) filters. In this image, North is up, East is left.
    SOURCE…T.A. Rector (University of Alaska Anchorage) and WIYN/NOAO/AURA/NSF

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