All of these images were taken by MacAdam Student Observatory personnel. The images of stars, galaxies, and nebulae demostrate our ability to see deeply into the cosmos in spite of being located in a city of 200,000. They also show that we can, and do, provide programs that allow UK undergraduates to participate in research that will prepare them for careers in the arts and sciences.
The MacAdam Student Observatory
The observatory is centrally located on the campus of the University of Kentucky. It is open to UK undergraduates, campus organizations, and the public at large. Completed in the fall of 2007, it is the first permanent observatory on UK's campus since 1961 and provides views of the night sky to almost 2,000 undergraduates per year. Since 2007, our community outreach programs have accomodated 10,000 people from Lexington and surrounding areas.
A custom digital photographc mask allows us to turn the dome and remove half of it from our view. Call it observatory dome on the half-shell. Inside is our Planewave CDK-20, 50 cm telescope.
"Transparent" Observatory Dome.jpg
Dome and Moon 16 September 2010.JPG
M97 - The Owl Nebula
M97 is a member of a class of objects called planetary nebulae because of their passing resemblance to planets when viewed through large telescopes. (See also images for M27 & M57.) These diffuse pbjects are a very brief stage in the life cycle of a Sun-like star. The star visible at the center of the nebula creates an expanding cloud of gas that fluoresces from intense UV radiation emitted by the star. While appearing quite substantial, the gas is actually a better vacuum than we can create on Earth.
NGC 2024 - The Flame Nebula
NGC 2024 (the 2,024th entry in the New General Catalog) is a star-forming region. It appears in a direction about 1 full Moon's width north of the famous Horsehead Nebula. Within this cloud, new stars are forming and cause the gas to glow. The dark tendrils are places where gas and dust are particularly dense and prevent visible light from passing through. The saturated image of a star in the lower right is the eastern-most star in Orion's belt. Recall that the direction east on the sky is toward the eastern horizon.
IC434 - The Horsehead Nebula
We see the famous Horsehead Nebula as a silhouette of dust and gas against the same complex of glowing gas that makes up The Flame Nebula (above). Seen from a different location in the Galaxy it would appear as a different shape, just as clouds on Earth would look different if seen from a different angle.
M3 - A Globular Cluster
Globular clusters are galactic agglomerations of up to a million stars. These stars were born together, have aged together, and will die together. M3 is one of about 200 globulars that orbit the Milky Way Galaxy and they are among the oldest stars in the Universe. In this image you see only the most luminous stars of the cluster. And while they appear to overlap, the core of a cluster like M3 is still mostly empty space. But compared to the solar neighborhood, they are practically on top of one another. The nearest stars to the Sun are a few light years apart. Now imagine 100,000 stars within a few dozen light years of the Sun. Our night sky would be populated by thousands of stars, each brighter than the brightest star now visible from Earth. Isaac Asimov's story Nightfall depicts a planet orbitting a star in a globular cluster that knows darkness only once every two thousand years.
Student Organizations
In the fall of 2010, the Student Christian Fellowship gathered for food, music, and dancing atop Parking Structure #2. Between burgers and hot dogs, students had heavenly views of the globular cluster M13 and the The Ring Nebula (M57).
Christian Fellowship Rave 2010-08-28.jpg
