Galaxy Zoo Talk

the black bar

  • Moctobers by Moctobers

    is the black bar on the right an artifact of camera?

    Posted

  • ElisabethB by ElisabethB moderator

    Hi Moctobers and welcome to the Zoo !

    The bright object to the right is a foreground star from our galaxy. The colours, white spikes and black bar are all optical artifacts.

    But, please, always classify the object in the centre of the image.
    Here it looks like it is a slightly disturbed edge on. But anyway, this is an image that we tag with #wrong-size. The software didn't size the galaxy correctly.

    Happy hunting ! 😄

    Posted

  • Moctobers by Moctobers in response to ElisabethB's comment.

    thanks for your fast responds : )
    I have another question: why many stars in the images can have four spikes like this one?

    Posted

  • ElisabethB by ElisabethB moderator

    Glad to be of help !

    As for the spikes, these are optical artifacts called diffraction spikes. see wiki for a really good explanation : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diffraction_spike

    Posted