Galaxy Zoo Talk

Impressive star with very near neighbour?

  • Mjtbarrett by Mjtbarrett

    Trevor Allen Faller spotted a tidal trail in http://talk.galaxyzoo.org/objects/AGZ000330t Whilst looking at SkyServer I saw a blue area in the bottm right hand corner of the wider image and navigated to this (impressive) star.

    I checked the NED and noted that the FITS image shows a very close companion just to the top right hand side of the star and another not very far away. At this scale the bloom of the star is approximately 1 arcsecond in diameter so the companion(s) are really pretty close.

    Is it possible to a) identify the star, b) determine the type of star and c) get an idea of what the companion is? I assume that the close coompanion is another (much smaller) star but have no idea whether anything else can be noted at this kind of scale.

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  • ElisabethB by ElisabethB moderator

    I think this is just one star.
    Pretty impressive though !

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  • Mjtbarrett by Mjtbarrett

    Thanks again ElisabethB 😃 The optical artifact in the SDSS image may be masking other objects. There are around seven or eight photometric objects showing up on the overlay but they can't be seen because of the messy "photon mayhem" (Nods in thanks to Jean Tate 😃).
    One of my problems is interpretation! The FITS image looks as if there's a close companion at around the 2 o'clock position but it could be several light years in front or behind for all I know 😦

    I'm just wondering if there's any way to tell easily if they are neighbours, possibly with an orbital relationship??

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  • ElisabethB by ElisabethB moderator

    Just by looking at this image, there is no way to tell how near or far they are. Sorry

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  • Mjtbarrett by Mjtbarrett

    Thanks anyway. I really appreciate your input.

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  • vrooje by vrooje admin, scientist

    Even if it's not found as a separate object by the SDSS pipeline, you could try to see whether it's a star or a galaxy by measuring the profile of the faint companion compared to the profile of things you know are stars. That does require astronomical software, however. Just looking at the thumbnail from the FITS image, it looks like a star to me...

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  • Mjtbarrett by Mjtbarrett

    Thanks vrooje 😃 Is there a way of identifying the large star and what type it is?

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  • monado by monado

    Or a nebula?

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  • Mjtbarrett by Mjtbarrett


    The FITS image keeps disappearing for some reason, sorry. Here it is again. The object I am talking about is the dense close companion at two o'clock.
    http://ned.ipac.caltech.edu/dss/SDSS_J085818.72+181830.7.gif ""

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  • Mjtbarrett by Mjtbarrett

    Galex near uv image


    http://galex.stsci.edu/GR6/?page=explore&objid=6377706414463259321

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  • Mjtbarrett by Mjtbarrett

    Skyview DSS image

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