Paintings
What are the M and NGC numbers in the descriptions of the paintings?
Charles Messier (1730 - 1817) was a French astronomer who, with his assistant Pierre Mechain, compiled a list of 110 deep space objects, partly so that fellow comet hunters wouldn't confuse them with comets. The objects in his catalog are still known by their Messier or M numbers.
These objects may also be known by their NGC or New General Catalog numbers. Work on this catalog was begun in the 1880s by J.L.E. Dreyer, working in part from observations by William Herschel (discoverer of the planet Uranus) and his son John. This catalog contains thousands of objects. Today, the NGC/IC project, according to its website, www.ngdicproject.org, "is a collaborative effort between professional and amateur astronomers to correctly identify all of the original NGC and IC (Index Catalog) objects, starting with the original discoverer's notes and working forward in time to encompass the work of contemporary astronomers such that the identity of each of the objects is known with as much certainty as we can reasonably bring to it from the existing historical record."
I'm stating distances in light-years. For reference, light travels 300,000 kilometers per second. The Sun is about 8 light-minutes from us, and Proxima Centauri, the closest star to the Sun, is 4.2 light-years away.
Sombrero Gallery
The Sombrero Galaxy, M104, NGC 4594 24 x 48, acrylic on canvas, c. 2010, $900.00
In the constellation Virgo, lying 11.5 degrees visually west of the star Spica, the Sombrero is a spiral galaxy that we see nearly edge-on. At a distance of about 28 million light-years from us, the Sombrero has a large glowing nucleus full of globular clusters--about ten times as many as orbit our own galaxy--and surrounded by prominent dust lanes. It's about 55,000 light years across. The Sombrero can be easily seen with binoculars, an approximately 8 inch telescope is needed to tell the central bulge apart from the disc, and the dust lane becomes visible with a 10-12 inch telescope.
Star forming region, Nebula RCW 49
Star forming region, Nebula RCW 49, acrylic on canvas, 20 x 20. $650.00.
Like the Trapezium in the Orion Nebula, this is a womb where stars are being born, and even looks a bit like a womb. It's about 14 thousand light-years away in the constellation Centaurus, measures 350 light-years across, and contains more than 2,200 stars. In the dust clouds you can see about 300 newborn stars; some have protoplanetary discs. The blue-white supergiants in the middle have burned away the dust clouds from which they themselves were formed.
The Whirlpool Galaxy
The Whirlpool Galaxy, M51, NGC 5194, acrylic on panel, 16 x 20. $725.00.
This painting is a close-up of the Whirlpool, as if we were floating over it. About 100,000 light-years across, the Whirlpool lies about 30 million light-years away in the constellation Canes Venatici. The Whirlpool is quite near another, smaller galaxy not seen here (NGC 5195; it would be to the left if it were in the painting). As that cosmic neighbor slides by, its gravity tugs hard at the Whirlpool's spiral arms, promoting star formation. The darker areas are gas and dust; the brightest areas are hot young blue-white stars, and the reddish areas are older star forming regions. The Whirlpool is visible through binoculars, although it takes at least an 8-inch telescope and excellent conditions to start to see the spiral form. Look about 3.5 degrees southwest of the end star of the Big Dipper's handle. (The width of an average-sized little fingertip, with the arm fully outstretched, is about one degree. The three middle fingertips held together are 5 degrees.)
The Rosette Nebula
The Rosette Nebula, NGC 2244, acrylic on panel, 18 x 24. Sold.
The constellation Monoceros's name means the Unicorn, and the Unicorn has a rose. This very large nebula surrounds the galactic star cluster NGC 2244. Other sections of the Rosette have been assigned the NGC numbers 2237, 2238, 2239 and 2246. It takes astronomical photography to record all the rich red colors of the Rosette. The red won't show up visually through a telescope, although the central star cluster, haloed by light, will. It's about 5,200 light-years from us, although distance estimates by scientists vary considerably.
The Orion Nebula
The Orion Nebula, M42, NGC 1976. Acrylic on canvas, 30 x 36. $825.00 framed.
The first time I looked through a good telescope, I aimed it at the Orion Nebula, about 1,600 light-years away, visible to the naked eye as a fuzzy patch in Orion's sword. The bright cluster in the middle is called the Trapezium, and the average age of its approximately 1,000 stars is about 1 million years - very young in astronomical terms. Active, recent and on-going star formation is happening in the Trapezium. I was visually and viscerally struck by the impression that it didn't have just height and width: it had an apparent cloudy depth. I knew this intellectually, but on that night I actually experienced it in the eyepiece. After a lifetime spent under what to the unaided eye seems a two-dimensional sky, stretched overhead like the domed walls of a thin curving tent, seeing this nebula made me feel as if what I would never have consciously called "the top of the sky" had just come off - and I had fallen up into it.
Omega Centauri
Omega Centauri, NGC 5139, acrylic on panel, 11 x 14. $600.00 framed.
This globular cluster is the biggest in the Milky Way Galaxy, containing as much matter as 5 million suns. Located in the constellation Centaurus, it is visible to the naked eye as a fuzzy 4th magnitude "star", low on the southern horizon (36 degrees south of the star Spica in the constellation Virgo) on spring and summer evenings. A good telescope won't give you this kind of color, but you can probably still pick out some blues. Omega Centauri measures about 150 light-years across and, at the center, the stars are packed in at an average distance from one another of about 1/10th of a light-year.
The Mice
The Mice, NGC 4676 A and B, acrylic on canvas, 30 x 40. $900.00
Two spiral galaxies in the midst of a cosmic collision, the Mice lie about 300 million light-years from us in the constellation Coma Berenices. Computer simulations show that we are seeing the galaxies about 160 million years after their closest encounter with one another. The difference between the gravitational pulls from one another's near and far portions created their "tails" of stars and dust. Eventually, gravity will coalesce them into one huge elliptical galaxy.
The Boomerang Nebula
The Boomerang Nebula, acrylic on canvas, 20 x 20. $650.00
Five thousand light-years from Earth, in the constellation Centaurus in the southern sky, the Boomerang Nebula was created by a gas moving outward from a red giant star at its core. Its extremely low temperatures are the result of the rapid expansion (nearly 600,000 km/hr) of the gas into space. Just how cold is it there? One degree above what scientists call absolute zero, or minus 458 degrees Farenheit. This is colder than the cosmic background radiation left over from the Big Bang - in fact, it is the coldest place we have measured in the Universe.
V838 Monocerotis
V838 Monocerotis, acrylic on panel, 16 x 20. In private collection.
In January 2002, this variable star, 20,000 light-years away in the constellation Monoceros, flared to 600,000 times the luminosity of the Sun. It faded again soon, and astronomers aren't positive exactly what caused its outburst. During the event, V838 Monocerotis didn't shed its outermost layers (as most stars would). Instead, it expanded to a huge size and its surface temperature dropped to about the temperature of a light bulb. What we see here is a light echo from the outburst that re-illuminates the surrounding dust shells it had shed years before.