Star Cluster Bursts in NGC 3603

Author: Tom* Comments(4)

NGC 3603 from Hubble back in 2007. Click for larger ~ 100k. Credit: NASA, ESA, and the Hubble Heritage (STScI/AURA)-ESA/Hubble Collaboration Acknowledgment: J. Maíz Apellániz (Institute of Astrophysics of Andalucía, Spain)

In the spirit of the Fourth of July fireworks that many will be watching tonight, I thought this image appropriate.

The image was released on October 2, 2007 and shows the star-forming region in the Carina arm of the Milky way, called NGC 3603.  Head over to the Hubble site for more versions of the image above.

Enjoy the fireworks and be safe!

4 Comments so far

  1. Stephen on July 6th, 2009

    Hi Tom,

    What causes the ‘cross’ effect at the bright points of light?

  2. Marian Ware on July 6th, 2009

    Hey Stephen, I may be totally wrong on this, but I think the “cross” effect is caused by the diffraction of the light by the aperture blades in the camera lens.

    When Tom comments, he’ll probably tell me to go crawl back into my microscope.

    Beautiful, isn’t it?

  3. Stephen on July 7th, 2009

    Thank you Marion – it is a beautiful picture.

    I was curious to know if the “cross” effect was intentional or as you indicate is caused by the camera lens.

    Would the picture have the same ‘wow’ factor without the “cross” effect?

  4. Earl Kendall on July 16th, 2009

    I would truly like to know what causes the “cross effect”in star photography. It probably is some sort of light diffraction obviously caused by the camera lens.
    Someone please tell me again what NGC stands for in star formation nomenclature and what the M stands for when referring to galaxies (i.e. Andromeda is M31). I’d rather someone tell me on this blog and not “google” it.

Leave a reply