Starry Nights LIVE from the Trottier Observatory (May 29, 2026)

Added: 2026-06-01

[00:00:10]Did that work? Is that working?

[00:00:13]>> Uh, well, there is always a delay. Um, >> there's also a Oh, I think I don't think it I don't think it's actually starting yet until >> There we go. I see it.

[00:00:23]>> Oh, do do you I don't see it yet.

[00:00:27]>> I got it.

[00:00:28]Uh, >> well, you're lucky I didn't get anything.

[00:00:35]>> I have it here ready to go.

[00:00:37]>> All right.

[00:00:37]>> I mean I mean, hey, if it's if it's working for you, then I guess that's all that really matters, huh?

[00:00:43]>> That's all good. Yeah. Yeah, I got it.

[00:00:45]All right. So, welcome everyone to our virtual starry nights. Uh, my name is Kyle. Joining me is >> uh hi everyone. I am Malcolm.

[00:00:58]Excellent. Welcome. Welcome. And joining us in the chat here, moderators, uh, Matthew and Roit. They'll be looking at any kind of questions or concerns or comments, uh, that, uh, that we might see out there in virtual space. Um, but welcome, welcome. We had a bit of a dry spell for the last few weeks and uh really excited to finally see some beautiful objects this evening. Um and just kind of one thing as well because we're kind of going into the summer months, the uh it doesn't really get dark until much later in the night.

[00:01:38]So kind of when we start off here, we'll be focusing on some more brighter objects. As you can see, we're starting with the king of the planets here, and we'll move into some uh beautiful star clusters, and once the night kind of progresses, we'll eventually get to some deep sky objects, which are quite dim, so we have to wait till it's darker. Uh, but that's kind of the itinerary. Um, I don't know. Any other comments on that, Malcolm? Or, uh, think we're ready to go here? Um, I I I guess the only real comments is that uh winter is better. It's it's the superior season. Yeah, >> that is true. That is true.

[00:02:21]>> Oh my gosh, someone agreed with me.

[00:02:23]>> Yeah. I mean, aside from the clouds and the rain though, right? I mean, then we can't see anything.

[00:02:28]>> Yes. Yes. Aside from Well, I mean, I don't know. I like the rain. I'm I'm a big I'm a big rain person and like, you know, it's it's it makes me feel comfortable, but I'm >> Hey. Hey, listening to the rain with like a good book out with a nice warm cup of tea. That That's a good night for me right there.

[00:02:49]>> Yes, I can I can I can 100% wholeheartedly endorse that. Yes, I agree with that.

[00:02:55]>> Oh, but yes, just like what Malcolm said. Yeah, winter is good because it's longer and darker nights, so you can see a lot more cool stuff.

[00:03:05]>> Yes.

[00:03:07]>> Okay. All right, let's get into it. So we are starting with uh the glorious planet Jupiter. And from here some things are kind of uh uh interesting to see right off the bat here. You can see there's two kind of dark bands that are going across its surface there. Those are the north and south equatorial bands. And the reason why they're kind of a different color is because they're kind of a different mixture of chemicals in the atmosphere, right? Uh especially with all the storms and tur and Jupiter's turbulent atmosphere. Lots of churning and um chemical mixtures are happening all at once. So you see kind of that discoloration there. Um but what's really interesting as well is how far away Jupiter is. like it's nearly a billion kilometers away, right? And it takes light probably about 45 minutes or so to get there. So, you're seeing Jupiter as it was 45 minutes ago. So, it's really quite something, I think.

[00:04:20]Um, and I think some really topics right now is the new Clipper mission is on its way to Europa uh to kind of uh survey the uh survey the surface of that moon because it's quite exciting. It's a uh an ice moon with um a potentially global ocean underneath which is quite quite fascinating and why we want to get there. so quick. So, yeah, really, really cool stuff. And even now, if you um there's a a probe called the Juno space probe that's currently orbiting uh Jupiter, and it's in this highly elliptical orbit. So, it takes it really really close to the um to the upper parts of the atmosphere. doesn't touch it, of course, but really close and then kind of follows that ellipse. That's why it's called an elliptical orbit all the way out thousands and thousands, even hundreds of thousands of kilometers away from the planet. And the reason why Jupiter or Juno is there is to also survey the atmosphere and seeing uh seeing what kind of cool science is happening.

[00:05:33]Now, if we're lucky here, sometimes if you look hard enough, you might be able to see the great red spot.

[00:05:44]But no, no. Do you see anything, Malcolm?

[00:05:46]>> I I can't see anything. No, it is it is quite quite a >> Yes. No, it it is not really something that is possible to see, unfortunately, as of right now.

[00:06:00]>> Unfortunately. Yeah, that's fair. Um, however, sometimes you don't even have to wait long. I mean, cuz one day on Jupiter is like 9 hours, right? Like it's so quick on how fast it rotates, right?

[00:06:16]>> But you definitely wouldn't want to be on there for a day. You probably wouldn't even want to be on there for a second to be honest with you.

[00:06:23]No, I mean like tens of thousands of kilometer winds are whipping around you and there's lightning storms all over the place and it's also incredibly hot the deeper you go into Jupiter, right?

[00:06:38]>> Pressured. Yeah, there's a lot of pressure in there as well.

[00:06:41]>> And pressure. So in addition to like an atmosphere that's uh like 10 uh hundreds of kilometers thick of course with the deeper you go in places the more pressure there is right um it's almost like the ocean the deeper you go into the ocean the more pressure is exerted on you and what's really fascinating is if you go deeper into Jupiter all of that pressure starts to compress the gases is until it forms a liquid.

[00:07:14]Literally, the weight of the atmosphere forces the molecules together into a liquid, right? Which is incredible. And then you go even further deeper. And so, okay, say you survive. You won't, but say you survive. Uh, and you go deeper into this ocean. And it's like firstly it's an ocean of like liquid natural gas and everything, right? Um but the deeper you go still that pressure continues to mount and eventually all of that liquid gets compressed into a solid which is incredible.

[00:07:58]>> Um actually on that on that topic of falling into a lovely gas giant like Jupiter, you don't don't do it.

[00:08:06]>> Don't do it. No, don't don't do it. But if you did, you would never actually reach if you could survive, you would never actually reach the center of the planet because as you fall into the planet, >> we expect that you would at some point start being suspended inside the planet.

[00:08:27]the buoyancy of the gas would actually cause you to be stuck in place floating in the planet. So you would never reach the center of the planet. I mean you'd probably be crushed but that you semantics. We don't need to worry about that.

[00:08:46]>> Semantics.

[00:08:48]Astronomy semantics.

[00:08:50]>> Astronomy semantics. Yeah. It's like falling into a black hole, you know?

[00:08:53]It's the if you could survive, >> yes, >> you can't, but if you could, >> what would happen anyway?

[00:09:03]>> Yeah.

[00:09:03]>> Yeah. So, Jupiter, really cool planet.

[00:09:06]And, um, even so, uh, its four Galilean moons are also quite a spectacle to see.

[00:09:14]And this was like one of the, um, one of the major discoveries that Galileo made, which is why they're called Galilean moons. um where he realized when observing Jupiter again this was in like late or uh uh late 1500s um where he was observing Jupiter over subsequent nights and notice that these quote unquote stars seem to move really quickly and they seem to go back and forth next to Jupiter. Now, if you just looked at a circle that's held at uh horizontally right at your eye level and you put a ball on it and you spin it, it looks like that ball is just going back and forth, right? And so you realize that, oh, maybe these stars aren't stars at all and are actually something else, moons, that are orbiting the planet.

[00:10:13]And that really in addition to a couple other observations uh solidified uh his findings that uh the earth is not the center of the solar system. In fact the sun is >> profound at the time.

[00:10:28]>> Yeah. Actually one of the other cool things unfortunately it has gone down now but on on the topic of planets that helped us realize we are not the center of the solar system or the universe. The one of the others that was pivotal in that was Venus because we saw that when we looked up at Venus, it had phases like our own moon. And the reason it had phases is because it sits between us and the sun. So, as it's orbiting around the sun, in theory, the only times we'd be able to see a quote unquote full Venus is when it's on the complete other side of the sun from us. Now, please do me a favor. Do not look at the sun. That it won't work.

[00:11:17]>> No.

[00:11:18]>> Yeah.

[00:11:18]>> Um, yeah, that's fair. That's fair. But oh, if you guys ever have a chance to see Venus during the day, because that is possible, although do it safely, just like Yeah, just like we said, do it safely. Um, you can actually see the phase that it's in, right? Um, >> yeah, >> which is really, really cool. actually in the night sky right now, like as as of recent the last couple of days, you may have seen as the sun was going down above where the sun was, there were two really bright looking stars.

[00:11:58]Those are not stars. Those are planets.

[00:12:00]Now, I believe the bright the super bright one is in fact Venus and the one following it is Jupiter. Although you will have to, Kyle, you may be able to fact check me on that. Uh I believe that's the case.

[00:12:14]>> Yes, the brighter one is Venus and it's closer to the uh to the horizon.

[00:12:19]>> Yeah.

[00:12:20]>> Yeah. Okay. Absolutely. So So yeah, you can already see Venus and Jupiter. You probably could right now go outside and see Jupiter just sitting above the horizon or a bit above the horizon right now in the >> west. Yeah, west.

[00:12:35]>> It's quite bright. Um, it's much brighter than any of the stars I believe in the night sky right now. So, if you went out and you could probably see it, that is that is indeed the large planet we are looking at >> over almost a billion kilometers away.

[00:12:55]>> Yes, such a lovely planet. But we've been pretty terrestrial up to this point. Shall we venture out into deeper waters here or deeper?

[00:13:09]>> I think we should. I think we should.

[00:13:11]>> So, I think we need to to move to the I need to spell Hercules. Correct.

[00:13:18]>> Wouldn't that be nice if I could actually spell?

[00:13:21]>> You know, I'm supposed to I'm supposed to be a Oh. Oh. Oh. Where'd it go?

[00:13:28]>> Oh, I think we are. I think we can just sl to it. I don't think it's a problem.

[00:13:32]It's on the other side of the universe right now. Yes.

[00:13:35]>> Yeah.

[00:13:39]>> Unfortunately.

[00:13:41]>> And just once again, uh yes, I know we have such alluring voices, Malcolm and I, but you're more than welcome to drop some questions in the chat here, and we'll uh do our best to answer them. And our moderators are >> voices.

[00:13:57]>> Hey, that's true. That's true.

[00:14:00]Uh, you have to I would have to, >> you know, I would I would disagree, but I I >> Well, we're we have voices made for streaming.

[00:14:13]>> Oh. Oh, okay. I you know what? I won't argue with that.

[00:14:19]>> All right.

[00:14:20]>> So, our next target here is the Hercules star cluster. Once >> Yes. Let us I can get this going here. I hope so.

[00:14:33]>> Uh we are in still mode. Oh no.

[00:14:38]>> Think >> Oh no.

[00:14:49]I >> think you're okay. If you go to uh I think it's capture. I think we can do um we can just do stacking. Oh, not that one.

[00:14:59]>> We are in live stack right now. We should be >> Oh, live stack. Yeah. Camera's in still mode. Capture.

[00:15:08]>> There we go.

[00:15:08]>> There we go.

[00:15:10]>> Awesome.

[00:15:11]>> A little brighter than it could be. So, why don't I zoom out a little bit here?

[00:15:18]>> Um and why don't actually you know what?

[00:15:20]Why don't we get a little bit move down a little bit? Uh because we're a bit higher than we need to be.

[00:15:30]Uh actually, you know what? Or should we leave it there? What do you think, Kyle?

[00:15:37]>> Uh let's move it a touchdown. Let's see what that does.

[00:15:41]>> Okay, we can we can move a touchdown.

[00:15:45]>> Just a touch.

[00:15:46]>> Just a touch. That's fine. Not 10°.

[00:15:51]No, that would be bad.

[00:15:55]>> I believe it's I believe it is actually up that we need to do for this one. It's a bit >> everything is backwards when you do astronomy.

[00:16:04]>> Actually, while while I'm while I'm doing this, uh we can actually discuss what I mean when I say everything is a bit backwards.

[00:16:12]>> Um >> indeed, >> in fact, it is so to the point. Why don't you Kyle discuss with them magnitudes magnitudes how we discuss how bright something is in the night sky?

[00:16:25]>> Yes. So okay so it gets a little tricky when we're talking about brightness of things right because stars and galaxies and nebula are at different distances right so we have to have some sort of standard of you know what's our going to be our starting point for figuring out brightness right and so we've decided astronomers have decided that that is labeled as the star Vega it has a magnitude of zero essentially. And what that'll mean is any star that is brighter than Vega will have a lower magnitude. So it'll dip into the negatives, right? So you could have like um uh like -1 or -3, right? The sun, for example, is -26 in terms of that, right? So it's so bright, of course, it outshines everything. Um, and the moon gets incredibly bright as well. But typically stars that are really bright will float around, you know, one or two magnitudes and or magnitude I should say and it's essentially like a logarithmic scale, right? So it's um I think the difference between magnitude 1 and magnitude 0 was 2.4 four times and then it's a multiple of that as you get higher and higher magnitudes. So that's essentially how we describe brightness. Right? Now what we were saying with how things are flipped um in the in the telescope and in the camera. That's typically because um uh there's a bunch of mirrors that are in telescopes, right? So what'll happen is the uh the light will come in through the telescope. It'll hit the primary mirror at the back of the telescope. What'll happen is that light will then get focused to a point and we have what's called a secondary mirror that again reflects that light back down the telescope. And then what'll happen is we'll have some eyepieces that will then use some lenses and additional additional equipment which will flip the image around like the literally the light beams will flip each other, right?

[00:18:48]And that's how we get kind of a reverse image. So when you're taking out manual telescopes or any kind of um other equipment outside, sometimes you'll have to make that adjustment. uh if you want to move your your object left, you have to angle your telescope right and up is down and everything's kind of flipped, right? So, it's kind of crazy here, but >> yes. Yeah, we are getting there. We are getting there.

[00:19:18]>> It is. It is starting to get a little bit more lined up. I have been recommended to actually try >> doing this. Um, so see >> if I fine, too. Oh. Oh, look at that.

[00:19:33]>> Get a little crazy. But yeah, getting some behind the scenes uh um >> behind the scenes scoop. So, >> yes, >> which is pretty cool.

[00:19:43]>> Yes. Yes. Unfortunately, things are no longer nothing is ever as uh easy as we make it look. So, um, kind of have to work with it, do our best. But, so you've probably been seeing, you've been noticing that every once in a while here, we get a really lovely picture of this big star cluster. This is what's called a globular cluster. This particular one is the great herculean cluster. Now, I'm not sure I can do it justice. Um, so why don't you why don't you take it away a little bit here while I I try and >> get this correct. Kyle, why don't you take it away and >> give a nice little explanation on what makes this one so special or what makes >> globular clusters.

[00:20:37]>> Yes. Yes.

[00:20:39]>> Okay. So, really, really cool. So, globular clusters here, they're well, I mean, the reason why they're called that is because they're a cluster of hundreds of thousands of stars, right? Typically, globular clusters will form around something a place called the galactic halo, which is just an area around the uh center of a galaxy.

[00:21:04]And uh there are many many different globular clusters that are in our galactic halo with Hercules being one of them. Now essentially what happens is these star clusters do have a bit of a life cycle. So they will start out as you know maybe a cluster of you know two or three stars or maybe four or five.

[00:21:27]And that kind of combined gravitational field will start to pull in more and more stars over the eons. Like these things take millions and billions of years to form and eventually an open cluster will form. Okay, typically those are younger stars that have been pulled together about maybe 50 or 100 200 stars in uh maybe an area of about 50 light years or so, right?

[00:22:02]But eventually over billions of years more and more stars will be attracted to this common center and then you get this beautiful again great timing Malcolm well done.

[00:22:16]>> Thank you. Beautiful >> enough, but I got it.

[00:22:18]>> Yeah, you got it. A beautiful cluster here that's made out of hundreds of thousands of stars. So, the Hercules star cluster probably contains about 500 600,000 stars and located above our galactic plane. If you imagine the galaxy is like a dinner plate, it's located above it and it's about 13,000 light years away. And so it's very very far. Um, and I don't know if you might be able to see it in the uh in the stream here, but there's a difference between or sorry, there's some different colors in the stars. I see a couple blue stars, but mostly there's some yellow stars in there. So, as these things age, they'll also attract older stars, right?

[00:23:13]Blue stars are very young, very energetic um stars and typically don't live for very long. So star clusters that have lots of blue stars in them is usually an indicator that they're young, young star clusters. But again, we see lots of yellow ones and maybe some red stars in there as well, though they're too dim to see. Uh but these yellow stars just like our sun um can live for billions of years, right? Possibly even trillions at least for these red dwarf stars. So this is a very old cluster. Hercules is nearly as old as our own galaxy, which is about uh I think 11 billion years old. 11 or 12.

[00:24:03]>> Yeah. Yeah, that's about right. So, >> oh, she's she's getting there.

[00:24:10]>> Yeah, they are they are >> good Milky Way.

[00:24:13]>> They are quite interesting uh these globular clusters. And one of the things that uh we we need to or we can kind of talk about here is if you notice one of the reasons how we know that they are this old is actually due to the color of a lot of these stars. Now, young stars, >> uh, as as Kyle was kind of hinting at and getting to are these these blue ones. So, these blue ones are the very young stars. And the reason they're blue, or sorry, rather, the reason we know they're young is actually because they're blue because that blue indicates that they're super duper hot, which means their lifespan is super duper short. So, they're not going to last very long. I mean, compared to you and me, >> Kyle, they're going to last. They're going to outlast us by a long shot. But whatever.

[00:25:03]>> In the relative scheme of things, you know, a few million to tens of millions of years is nothing compared to the 13 or 12 or 13 billion years old that you see some of these globular clusters being.

[00:25:17]>> Mhm.

[00:25:18]>> Yeah.

[00:25:19]though. And you know, okay, the thing is these systems, they're also very dynamic places, right? With all of these stars all packed in one place, all of those gravitational influences makes it quite a dynamic place. Stars will be moving around and going all sorts of which way.

[00:25:42]Okay, thought experiment again. You know, like falling into a a gas giant or falling into a black hole. If there was a planet that was orbiting one of these stars, there would be like if you were to look up into the sky, it would be essentially looking at city lights all of the time and just so many bright stars all in one place and it it would be difficult to try and view like galaxies or objects that are outside of the star cluster, right? So if if so good thought experiment I think but yeah >> oh >> loving this loving this. Oh it's been too long. Oh and yes visually seeing this through a telescope because you can look at it through a uh a telescope as well. It'll look like a uh a dash of salt on a black background. People have described it.

[00:26:49]Yeah, >> really, really cool. And like the name suggests, it is in the constellation of Hercules, hence the Hercules star cluster.

[00:26:59]>> Yeah.

[00:27:00]>> So, why don't we move I guess we can move now to something a little bit >> prettier. I'm just gonna just gonna put it out there. It is prettier in my opinion.

[00:27:11]>> You know, you may disagree. You I I don't know about you. I I think it's prettier. I always find nebulas are like the prettiest things in the night sky to be honest with you.

[00:27:19]>> I mean I I I everything about space is cool. I I have no favorites but um >> that's I fair enough. Fair enough. I can I can respect that.

[00:27:31]>> But I'm ready for some nebula and I'm really going to this one.

[00:27:37]>> Yeah. So this is going to be a very very very special nebula. Actually this is not just any kind of nebula. So, let me let me zoom in here. Make sure that we got a nice aim on it here.

[00:27:51]Okay.

[00:27:52]>> To be right on target.

[00:27:53]>> Uh, well, we hope so. We hope so. It's a little bit off right now. Uh, Joanna had suggested going into live view.

[00:28:02]>> Mhm. I think you have to uncclick live stack.

[00:28:05]>> Oh, yeah. You know what? You're probably right. Okay. So, let's do live stack.

[00:28:09]>> Oh, okay. There we go. And then let's see what happens here when we do this. Now the only thing is is that this is a >> maybe zoom out a bit. Well >> Oh yes, that's a good No, I think I think it may be too dim. So we actually might have we might have to live stack this one actually.

[00:28:34]>> Oh, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. For sure.

[00:28:36]>> Yeah. Cuz cuz this is a I think this is a lot dimmer compared to Oh, yes, there you can start to see it right there.

[00:28:43]>> Okay.

[00:28:44]>> And the ghost emerges from the cosmos.

[00:28:47]Oh, that's so eerie.

[00:28:49]>> So, let me let me move down a little bit here so that we can actually >> or I guess up.

[00:28:58]Oh. Oh. Oh.

[00:29:05]Okay, there we go. And we can slooh up a bit just so we can actually see our nebula a bit more clearly.

[00:29:18]Now you might be wondering why it is we are like why I'm I'm having to do and it it's I think that's it.

[00:29:25]>> Oh either that or I lost it.

[00:29:29]>> You may be wondering.

[00:29:31]>> Yeah I I will go back down. You may be wondering why it is I am I am doing this weird thing where we are going and stacking images. And that actually has to do with something that we can kind of talk about compared to our eyes and kind of give you an idea of how bad our eyes are at looking at the night sky.

[00:29:52]When we look at really, really, really pretty pictures of things like this nebula down here, which is still unfortunately not very bright right now, which I can change quickly. Hold on. Oh, wow. It's very green, isn't it?

[00:30:09]>> Uh, let's see.

[00:30:14]>> A little bit too much, >> I think. So, yeah, I think that that that did a little too much here. Um, oh no. Did Oh, I see what happened here.

[00:30:29]Let me reset that and then kind of see here if we can get this to look better. May want to increase the exposure a little bit here. So, let me try doing that. Um but basically the reason why we are doing this is because yeah our eyes are not great at seeing things in the night sky. So for something like our nebula here we have to stack the images. So we have to actually combine the images uh on top of each other in order to um well combine the light basically. So basically we take a nice image and we start stacking it and stacking it and stacking it so we can combine hundreds and hundreds and maybe even thousands of pictures into one really nice picture.

[00:31:20]>> Now unfortunately I don't know why this is the case. I'll try loading a um something here and hopefully we'll actually be able to get a better picture.

[00:31:30]But yeah, so what we want to do is we want to stack these images so that we can in time make a really nice looking picture.

[00:31:39]Now, on to the actual object. What are we looking at? So, this lovely object down here, and let me see if I can zoom in a little bit on it, is known as the sorry, is known as the >> Yes, I had to make sure I got that right. The Ring Nebula. So, what is the Ring Nebula, >> Kyle? What is the Ring Nebula? Oh, okay.

[00:32:08]So, it is a planetary nebula. So, think of it as like a um uh the remains of a long dead star.

[00:32:20]Okay? So, a star actually like our own sun um that has gone through its life cycle and reaches the ending stages and will release its outer uh outer layers.

[00:32:33]Now the thing is about okay I guess we have to talk about life cycle of the of stars here where pretty much what happens is um a star will be born go out its life and throughout its lifetime it's fusing uh hydrogen into helium and helium into uh uh carbon and there's like different stages. Okay. So what happens then is when a star reaches a certain stage which depends on its mass which that's a whole another thing. Uh it will release it outer or it'll become a red giant phase which is pretty close to the end at that point and then what'll happen is it'll release its outer layers. Okay.

[00:33:25]Now, all of those colors that are just working on getting the image a little better, but all of those colors, the reds on the outside and the blues in the middle are due to different elements with hydrogen and helium being the reds and oranges with things like oxygen and things being the uh uh the blues. And oh, you can just barely see it, but there's a white dot right in the middle of the ring nebula there. And that is the core of the star that was once there called a white dwarf.

[00:34:05]And it's still incredibly hot from when the star was fusing, right? So it's white hot, but it's no longer fusing anymore. So what'll happen is over like actual quintilions of years will cool down, right? But the thing with those um uh with those outer layers is they're going to continue to move away from that white dwarf, right? So eventually the ring nebula will get bigger and bigger.

[00:34:37]Now why do we call it a planetary nebula to begin with? Well, I think that was all because of early astronomers uh looked at these objects and were going, "Uh, that looks like a planet.

[00:34:52]I'm going to call it a planet." And turns out they were not a planet because planets if if actually this is really cool if you picked up will move across the sky over over months and over years, right? Jupiter slowly moves across the sky. Mars and Saturn also do the same thing.

[00:35:15]Planetary nebula do not. And so that was kind of a big clue that maybe this is something that's not in our solar system here and is actually uh uh part of the galaxy proper.

[00:35:32]And then we found out it has part of a stars life cycle.

[00:35:36]And holy jeez, Malcolm, you're working your magic. Well done. Well done.

[00:35:41]>> Uh, I'm having some I'm having a little bit of help. So, I can't I cannot take all of the credit. Um, I'm I'm doing my best here to make the picture look nice.

[00:35:51]So, as you may it is still pretty hard to see, but you may be able to see in the center there of that nice lovely ring that there is a little white dwat dwat. English is a difficult language apparently. So, that is that is the little white dot that Kyle was talking about. That's that white dwarf. Now, Kyle, I I don't think you I don't believe I heard you talking about the actual uh formation of white dwarfs. So, so why don't I I kind of take over there? Uh because this is something I I pride myself in. I'm I'm a little bit good at it.

[00:36:25]>> Um so, yeah. So, basically, >> absolutely. Basically, what happens is there's basically three sort of possible or or yeah, three possible things that can happen to a star when it dies. Now, I'm sure most of you have probably heard of something called a black hole. That's the most extreme case. It's also really rare and probably not like going to happen very frequently.

[00:36:54]There is the middle case for like what we can I guess call middle mass stars.

[00:37:00]Not really middle mass but whatever. Uh and that is what is known as a neutron star. And then of course there is the lowest case or the lame star. I just I don't really know what else to call it.

[00:37:15]>> Star lame lame stars because they're boring.

[00:37:19]>> Yeah. It's it's the most common >> and that is the white dwarf. And that's sort of what our star is going to do. So when our star dies, it's going to have this beautiful ring around it, this beautiful kind of nebula around it, just like this.

[00:37:33]>> Mhm.

[00:37:34]>> Yeah. First, it's going to grow really big and swallow the Earth up. But don't worry, that's in a few billion years. So yeah, we we'll we'll be okay. Uh but yes, then it will emit this absolutely gorgeous nebula just like this >> and it become a tiny little white dwarf >> which is basically just a really hot rock and nothing else.

[00:37:56]>> It did. I mean pretty much. Yeah.

[00:37:58]>> Yeah. Oh, I think I think my I think my uh mouse got connected to the Oh, no.

[00:38:08]I think I think my mouse got connected to the wrong thing.

[00:38:13]>> Oh wow, it is it is freaking out right now. Hold on. Let me get the back down.

[00:38:19]>> There we go. Okay, sorry about that.

[00:38:20]Sorry about that. Technical issues. Uh but yeah, so our star will do that and unfortunately we won't be able to see it. Now, that actually comes to another thing that a lot of the things we see in the night sky, they look really pretty from afar, but in up close, if you were actually inside of it, they wouldn't actually really look nearly as pretty as what we see from the far.

[00:38:45]>> Oh, really?

[00:38:46]>> Yeah. So, like something like, and we don't, this is not an example of one, but something like a stellar nebula, >> something like the Tarantula Nebula, or >> what's another >> Orion, I guess. Is that a >> Orion Nebula? Yeah. If you were inside of them, you wouldn't see them in the same way that you would see this. So, if you looked up inside the Orion Nebula, you wouldn't be like, "Wow, I'm completely surrounded by all these beautiful colors." Because the gas is actually really not that dense, right?

[00:39:16]So when we look at from afar, it's because you have this huge cluster of gas that looks really condensed from afar, but if you go inside of it, it's actually really still quite spread apart.

[00:39:30]>> Okay. So it's almost like a going in a cloud in a in an airplane.

[00:39:36]>> Yeah. You can see you can see a cloud from afar and it looks oh my gosh, look, this is a cloud. But when you're in the actual cloud itself, it doesn't really look like I mean, unless it's a super duper thick and dense one, it doesn't look like, you know, I'm I'm mean, think about like fog, right? When you're in fog, >> right? It doesn't look like it's this super dense thing necessarily that you're in compared to if you're seeing the fog from a distance, right?

[00:40:03]>> Okay, that makes sense.

[00:40:03]>> Kind of the same thing.

[00:40:05]>> Yeah.

[00:40:06]>> Mhm. Um, so why don't we move on to our next target here?

[00:40:12]>> I'm just going to make sure I get this one correct. Oh, yes. Yes. I hope I hope you guys don't mind a little uh >> Dwayne the Rock Johnson because uh you're going to need some salt and pepper for this next one.

[00:40:30]Get it? Get it? Cuz because we're doing the salt and pepper cluster.

[00:40:36]Oh, I was thinking of like the rock.

[00:40:38]>> Yeah, I know. I was I know, but you know the joke like uh like you know the joke the the can you tell what the rock's cooking?

[00:40:45]>> You know.

[00:40:45]>> Oh, >> get it.

[00:40:49]>> Dang it.

[00:40:49]>> Someone laugh.

[00:40:52]>> Someone laugh. Please.

[00:40:56]>> All right. So, let me just make a business.

[00:41:00]>> No, it's okay. It's okay. I mean, I it was a bad joke that was horribly executed, but let's zoom out here and go go find our lovely cluster. So, this is >> the Cassiopia salt and pepper cluster is what this one is called.

[00:41:22]>> Oh, yeah. It's a nice big >> open cluster. So we previously talked about a globular cluster >> and now we're going to look at an open cluster.

[00:41:35]So let me just quickly not do that. Let me clear that.

[00:41:40]Um I think actually this one we might be able to get away with doing live view because it is an open cluster.

[00:41:47]>> I guess we'll try it. Live stack might be a little bit better, but we'll see.

[00:41:51]We'll see.

[00:41:52]>> Yeah. I mean, if if the if the live view doesn't look good, then we can always just go back to live stack. It's not a huge deal. And I'm going to say we go back to live stack.

[00:42:02]>> Sure. Might have to uh adjust it as well.

[00:42:06]>> I Yes, I will. I will 100% adjust do a little adjusting here. This is this is where I need to apparently work my magic. Uh so, let's slude down. I think it's down is the problem here. Again, unfortunately, when it comes to looking at things through a telescope and trying to reorient yourself to actually see things more clearly, it's never as simple as ah yes, yes, this is correct.

[00:42:33]Now, it's a big thing of trying to finesse it into the right spot. It is still not in the right spot. Uh so while while waiting for me to figure it out, >> how about why won't you why don't you explain to the lovely people what is an open cluster and why is it different from a globular cluster >> and why isn't there anything called a closed cluster? Why why do we only have the open cluster?

[00:43:02]>> Well, well that's a good question. I mean closed cluster would just mean like ah there's walls all over the place, right?

[00:43:10]uh open cluster just means it's uh diffuse, right? So diffuse meaning it's uh not very tight or dense, right? Um so yeah, just like what we were saying earlier with open cluster. So now we're going to see the um uh the other side of that. Maybe if you fiddle with the histograms, it might be able to work.

[00:43:33]Um, >> okay.

[00:43:35]>> I've also been suggested to align frames. Move the level down. Oh, yes, of course.

[00:43:42]>> Just like that. There we go.

[00:43:44]>> That did that. Yes, I will. I will do.

[00:43:47]Hold on. Let me grab the blue a little bit so his can actually look a little more white.

[00:43:53]Um, well, the stars can look a little more white anyways. Yes.

[00:44:00]Nice. Yes. So, open clusters.

[00:44:05]>> Mhm.

[00:44:06]Yes. So, open clusters. So, yeah, very very uh or it's not very diffuse rather.

[00:44:12]So, or Oh my god. Not very dense. It's a Friday night. We'll get there. Um and uh so so this is kind of the other half. So you we just saw a globular cluster very tight. And just remember that image cuz now looking at this one we see much more uh uh diffuseness, right? And even not a lot of color variance either. A lot of the stars are kind of more on the white kind of bluer side, right? Um so it's really quite interesting. Now, what's interesting about the salt and pepper cluster is it's actually on the opposite side of the galactic center as seen from the Earth. So, it's much much farther away, right?

[00:45:05]Uh >> yeah. No, it is it's >> super far away from us.

[00:45:12]>> Or rather, it's super far away from the galactic center is what I should say.

[00:45:16]>> Oh, yes. Exactly.

[00:45:18]>> Yes. And uh >> Oh, no worries. No worries. It's actually so >> pardon me. Let me let me let me correct my previous mistake of what I said.

[00:45:32]>> It is indeed something that is quite far away from the galactic center. However, it is actually not far away from us. In fact, it is close enough to Earth that it potentially formed in our arm of the galaxy. So, you may >> or may not know that our galaxy has a really nice spiral shape.

[00:46:02]>> And part of that spiral shape is it has galactic arms.

[00:46:06]>> So, our arm, which you may remember the name of, I'm terrible with the Milky Way galaxy, ironically. Oh, we're in the Orion arm.

[00:46:17]>> Thank you. Okay. I thought so, but I I'm not confident in myself.

[00:46:20]>> So, yes, we are in the Orion arm.

[00:46:23]>> And >> I guess more like the Orion Signis spur, I guess, technically, but anyway, that's the the technical term.

[00:46:32]>> Yes. Yes. Um, >> so yeah, we are in the Orion arm and this one is actually this cluster is actually close enough to us that it could have potentially formed in our arm of the galaxy. Now, one of the things about open clusters compared to globular clusters is that as we mentioned previously, globular clusters are filled with all these really old stars like few billions, tens of billions or at least over 10 billion years old. Those are really old stars. Open clusters are actually a lot different. In fact, most open clusters that we see are made up of super young stars. So, a lot of these stars you're seeing aren't that red color that we saw previously. They're much more white color. And yeah, what we are what we and I can make this a little bit more I can make it blue, but I don't want to force it. What we are seeing there is that the stars in this cluster are much younger than what we would see in something like a globular cluster.

[00:47:31]They're fresh stars. So, it's a nice cluster of fresh stars, >> but as Kyle was saying, they're also a lot smaller in terms of their members.

[00:47:45]So, when you look at a globular cluster, you see something in the tens of thousands or to the hundreds of thousands of stars in a really small area. So something like the Hercules cluster, it has something like 300 to 600,000 stars in it, but it's only like 100 or 200 light years across. Now for something like an open cluster, you may have those same sort of sizes in terms of the distance, but instead of having tens to hundreds of thousands of members, you only have maybe tens or hundreds or thousands. They're much smaller in size compared to a globular cluster, which I definitely think that we should call it a closed cluster from now on. Yeah, I think I think we should go to NASA and tell them that >> it's official.

[00:48:37]>> Yeah. Why do we need to have all these convoluted names like like you have open clusters >> so we could have closed clusters?

[00:48:47]>> I'm I'm just saying, >> right?

[00:48:49]>> I'm just saying. See, this is why you should elect me the head of NASA.

[00:48:55]I'm just saying >> it's a you're on for uh >> you're on for Artemis 8.

[00:49:03]>> Yeah. No, you should you should elect me the new head of NASA. I definitely will not mess everything up.

[00:49:13]Promise.

[00:49:15]>> Do not do it, please.

[00:49:17]>> But fair enough. Uh yeah. So brilliant clusters here. And sometimes we can see different shapes in them as well cuz they're going this this is a natural process for humans. Like we see faces and shapes and everything, right?

[00:49:32]>> And is there one that looks like an owl?

[00:49:35]>> There is. Yeah. There's even one that looks like a rose or a screaming skull.

[00:49:41]>> Oh, >> which is a really name for a cluster.

[00:49:45]>> But yeah, and actually there is. So if anyone's ever wondered what that word is, there is a actual word for it. That word is called paridolia.

[00:49:55]So whenever you see a face or something like that in a >> otherwise unseemingly normal thing, yes, that is that is paridolia >> or like creepy hands that are tapping the window when it's actually just a branch.

[00:50:15]>> Okay. Okay. Well, now you're going to make me like really scared now. I I don't know what to I don't know what to do about that one. Um, you got me.

[00:50:21]>> Hey, I mean Costco probably has Halloween stuff already, so I mean, might as well. No.

[00:50:27]>> Why are you scaring me more?

[00:50:33]>> I don't want to be scared yet. It's not We're not even close to Halloween yet.

[00:50:37]We gota You got to wait a little bit before we get into Halloween time, you know.

[00:50:46]I don't think that this is Let me see.

[00:50:49]Let me center on that. Oh, yeah. There it is. Okay. So, that is the target.

[00:50:52]That is the correct one. All right.

[00:50:54]Good. Good. Good.

[00:50:58]>> Whoa.

[00:50:58]>> All right. Let me let me reset our picture here. Clear. And we can get a new one going. So, there is a lot of really weird naming conventions that we actually have. While this is just loading in here, there's a lot of weird naming conventions we actually have in um astrophysics and astronomy and everything like that. And one of the the weird things is that there's never a consistent name given for a single target. So yeah, this particular cluster, which I I will have to this is the old one still. I need to reclear it, which is okay. This particular cluster we're going to be looking at right now has many names.

[00:51:44]In fact, it has way too many in my opinion.

[00:51:47]>> Uh the most notable name, at least the one that it mostly comes up as, is the Caroline's Rose Cluster. I love that it's just a complete black screen right now, so they're not seeing anything. But there's also a few other names. So there is the ghost cluster. There is the Star Mist cluster. There is the Hersel spiral cluster, the crab cluster, >> and the screaming skull cluster.

[00:52:16]>> Uh, whoa.

[00:52:19]>> I don't know why they came up with so many names for one target, but they did.

[00:52:23]You know, not much I can >> Yeah, >> just happened.

[00:52:27]>> Oh, yeah. It did just happen.

[00:52:29]>> Wow.

[00:52:31]>> Oh, it's quite a nice one, though. It is. It is a very nice target. So, let's see if we can um slew into it properly here. Hopefully we can. Um >> yeah, >> and uh yeah, the thing is because we're dealing with really distant um targets, we have to have some long exposure time.

[00:52:54]So, it's unfortunately like it's a click, wait to gather the light, see if we're on it, click, move, that kind of thing. Um, and again, I think we mentioned this briefly uh uh at the beginning as well, but it's we're trying to gather the light and uh stack those images on top of each other in order for us to see it.

[00:53:17]>> Unfortunately, I don't think I'm seeing it right now, which is unfortunate.

[00:53:23]>> Oh, >> yeah.

[00:53:24]>> I was hoping to see a screaming skull.

[00:53:26]>> I was too. I was kind of excited, but it may actually be the case that this one's too duse. Um, I'm not seeing >> anything. See, let's see. Let's try raising blue a bit here >> and then or we could wait a bit. We could wait a bit and see.

[00:53:45]>> Um, too low in the sky. You're in the northeast, which is I think. Okay. So, this one may actually just be too low in the sky, so we may not be able to see it.

[00:53:55]>> Unfortunately, that's just another limitation of the fact that we live on the planet. Um, so I think what what we should do is we should start a GoFundMe and we should we should move the entirety of SFU Physics into space into orbit. I think that's that's a good way to fund the the next the next change to SFU Physics. It may cost >> that's the next space station. Yeah, I think it may cost several several tens if not hundreds of millions of dollars, but I think it's a great way of spending someone's money. I don't I don't I don't know. Kyle, do you do you by any chance have lots of money? Cuz I I do not.

[00:54:40]>> Uh no, but uh but hey, maybe we can also invest in a space elevator, too, so we can still have Starry Nights but in space.

[00:54:49]>> Oh, yeah. Actually, you know what?

[00:54:51]That's not a bad idea, I think. I think the owl cluster may also be too low because it is a little bit lower than Cassiopia. So, unfortunately, I do not think we'll be able to see that one either.

[00:55:04]>> I'd say which means >> which means >> it is time for whoop, wrong one. It is time for the stars of the show.

[00:55:17]And I just realized that that's not really a good joke in this case because this isn't actually a star. It's a something much bigger but this is semantics or something.

[00:55:25]>> Are we going extra galactic?

[00:55:30]>> Oh, I think we are going extragalactic.

[00:55:33]>> Yes, we are.

[00:55:34]>> I do believe so. So, let us >> and let us move. We are going to look at something even better than a small little cluster of stars. So we've looked at open clusters. We've looked at closed clusters or globular clusters, whatever the scientific name is. Yeah.

[00:55:56]Yeah. Whatever.

[00:55:57]>> And we've talked about how open clusters have the tens to several thousands of stars. We have talked about the globular clusters which have, you know, tens to hundreds of thousands of stars. No big deal. Small rookie numbers. Let us now move to the big number.

[00:56:16]>> Rookie numbers. I like it.

[00:56:18]>> Rookie numbers. Rookie numbers. We are going to move into the big one now. We are going to move into >> galaxies. Yes, I did say it. We are moving into galaxies now.

[00:56:31]>> Whoa.

[00:56:32]>> I need to make sure that it actually I don't know if it will come up for this one. Um because unfortunately >> Oh, wow. That was easy.

[00:56:43]>> Wow, that was really easy. I thought that was difficult.

[00:56:48]>> No, that's cool.

[00:56:49]>> All right, cool. Okay, so let's let's see if I can get this a little bit better centered. That is looking spectacular. I do love me a good galaxy.

[00:56:59]Um, so let's move a little bit closer to here. Slooh there.

[00:57:07]Um, and let's refresh this. Wow. Even on 20 seconds, that is looking amazing.

[00:57:17]>> So, I think if I remember correctly, Kyle, this is one of your favorites.

[00:57:20]Yes. Oh, yeah. That that >> All right. Well, then in that case, >> I do believe it is only fair that I give this one to you.

[00:57:30]>> Well, what can I say about one of my favorite galaxies here? So this is the whirlpool galaxy as aptly named for the beautiful beautiful spiral that it has here. Okay. So upon seeing it there are there's something else in the frame as well. It is another secondary galaxy. It's it's a more like a dwarf galaxy. That's and again currently this is like heavy quotes here currently interacting with the Whirlpool galaxy.

[00:58:11]So kind of like what you see on screen here is you have Whirlpool on the left and that companion galaxy or dwarf galaxy on the right. What's happening is that dwarf galaxy is actually a little bit farther, just a hair, just a touch farther than the whirlpool. And it's actually coming in and slamming into the whirlpool from behind. Okay? And what's going to happen is due to all of those uh uh gravitational interactions and tidal forces, they're going to combine together and form an even bigger galaxy, right? It'll trigger star formation and even maybe some lots of maybe star clusters will eventually form billions of years down the line. But what is attracting the two are the central black holes in each of them. Okay. So the black hole at the center of whirlpool is pulling on that uh dwarf galaxy toward itself. Right? And this galaxy I think is about 30 million light years away. So you're seeing this beautiful, beautiful galaxy as it was 30 million years ago.

[00:59:34]And just a little bit about the image that you're seeing, there are some bright good bright spiral arms and even some like kind of darker smudges that are right in the arms as well like directly in the arms.

[00:59:50]That is due or those are just like nebula and dust lanes that are inside the galaxy itself. And you see a bunch of bright stars that are above the galaxy and a couple to the uh uh to the bottom right or sorry bottom left there.

[01:00:07]Those are foreground galaxies. So that means that those are stars that are within our galaxy. That's just happens to be in the way. So we can't actually we can't actually see individual stars at this distance uh of the whirlpool.

[01:00:23]But it's quite quite fascinating. And it might be difficult to tell in the image here. Uh but there should be some more bluer stars toward the edges with more um >> right in there. Yeah.

[01:00:42]>> I'm hoping you guys can see my mouse.

[01:00:44]Like right here where you can see the two galaxies combining here, there's like a little bit of a blue patch there.

[01:00:50]You can see a little bit there.

[01:00:52]Yeah, exactly. And uh with some and towards the center of the galaxy there it's more yellow, right? So that just kind of indicates that as galaxies are, you know, forming and uh more like going about their going about their day. I'm saying like it's so mediocre um that to them it is over >> yeah over the eons these older stars might start to migrate towards the center of these galaxies right um so you can almost tell the age of these things in essence right um oh another thing to point out maybe Mike or Malcolm you can help me out with this so on the companion galaxy just below it. There should be like a little dark spike going through it. Um, and that's actually one of the arms from the whirlpool that's just in front of the uh >> I think that's I think that's that Yeah, it's it's not really I think I can I can see what you're meaning here. Like this you can see this like kind of triangular shape kind of coming out and >> poking in there. Yeah, I can I can see what you mean there.

[01:02:07]>> Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. So, so that kind of indicates or uh Yeah. indicates that that companion galaxy is behind Whirlpool there.

[01:02:17]>> Yeah.

[01:02:18]>> Yeah.

[01:02:18]>> Yeah. Um and even a little picture you can find um uh online is there is the uh telescopes actually took a picture of the central black hole of whirlpool and it almost looks like an X which actually it does pretty much look like an X there. Uh so that's a little bit of homework for you guys is to maybe go and look at uh some images of the Whirlpool galaxy of its central uh black hole and you'll see this X there. That's not the black hole itself. It's just some dust lanes that are obscuring the uh the dark monster within. But uh yeah. Oh my gosh, I love this.

[01:03:01]>> Unfortunately unfortunately we cannot actually see a a black hole with our own eyes. No. something about it, you know, sucking or sucking, I say with quotations, all the light in.

[01:03:15]>> Don't take don't don't take my word for that. They don't actually suck in light.

[01:03:18]>> That's a really horrible way to describe it. But yes, you can't actually see them correctly because all the light is bent into them and they can light cannot escape unfortunately.

[01:03:29]>> Yeah.

[01:03:30]>> Yeah. Yeah, that's fair. But oh my gosh, I could stare at this for so long.

[01:03:37]Well, I think why don't we why don't we continue on here? As much as as much as I know you would love to keep seeing this, we do have more things to look at.

[01:03:45]So, why don't we continue on here a little bit and move into >> Okay, >> our hat of the day.

[01:03:57]I'm sorry. I have >> our hat.

[01:03:59]>> Our hat. Yes, our hat of the day. I'm I'm a bit of a I'm a bit of a person when it comes to hats. I do like my hats. So, we are going to go look at a hat.

[01:04:12]>> We're going to look at a hat. Oh, I hope >> cheap.

[01:04:15]>> I hope it's a cheap hat.

[01:04:16]>> Uh, you never know.

[01:04:18]>> Hats are hats. I mean, I mean, everything's expensive now, but you know, like hat good hats. You can probably find good hats. Not too expensive. I mean, this one's This one's probably not that expensive. It's just uh >> uh really big.

[01:04:31]>> Just a little bit far away from us.

[01:04:34]Yeah, it's kind of it's kind of far away and you it wouldn't fit on your head.

[01:04:40]>> I mean, fair. Yeah, that's fair.

[01:04:41]>> Yeah. Yeah. Unfortunately Unfortunately, this particular hat would not not fit at all.

[01:04:50]I mean I mean you could probably make it try and make it fit, but you would have to have a really big head.

[01:04:56]>> All right, let's see if this is now aimed correctly. Let us clear our image because I don't want to stack two galaxies on top of each other. Although that would look really funny.

[01:05:14]It's green.

[01:05:17]>> We're We're coming out of warp drive >> apparently. Yeah. No kidding. Holy moly.

[01:05:23]>> Okay, there we go. Now we're starting to make it Now we're starting to make some sense of it. Okay.

[01:05:30]I like I like making sense of things. I do like it when things, you know, when everything comes together. That's when That's when I'm I'm We're all happy at there at the most.

[01:05:42]>> Oh, this looks so neat.

[01:05:45]>> Yes. Yes. We have ourselves. And let me just make sure I am in the correct frame. So, the dark is on the bottom here. And in our picture, it's on the top, which means >> I need to go a little bit closer to the bottom. I need to go a little bit closer to the I'm not going to be allowed to, am I?

[01:06:07]>> Yeah, it looks pretty good.

[01:06:10]>> Uh, well, okay. All right. Let's Let's see. Can I Can I move No, I can't move that down that way. So, that's okay.

[01:06:17]That's okay. Let's Let's actually get to our picture here so we can actually start looking at a galaxy here. Okay.

[01:06:22]So, why why does this one look so much different, Kyle? Why why does this galaxy look so much different from the last galaxy? The last one, it looked amazing. It looked like this nice disc, but this one just looks like a line, >> right?

[01:06:36]>> That doesn't make any sense. Why does it look like a line?

[01:06:39]>> Little bit interesting. So, essentially, oh, excuse me. Essentially imagine galaxies and I should say spiral galaxies because there's different types of galaxies.

[01:06:53]There's something called irregular galaxies which is just a jumbled mess of stars and dust and whatever. Then you have beautiful spirals which are great to look at, great to take pictures of.

[01:07:05]Astronomers love them >> right here >> like this one. And there's something called elliptical galaxies which are essentially just big spheres of stars, matter and dust that are millions of light years across um or sorry hundreds of thousands of light years across.

[01:07:26]So this if you imagine spiral galaxies as plates literally a dinner plate. I mentioned this a little bit earlier with a ball rolling around on it. But if you imagine spiral galaxies as dinner plates, they can be in whichever orientation whatever in the universe.

[01:07:46]The whirlpool galaxy was nice and oriented beautifully where we can see its lovely shape. We call that face on.

[01:07:55]So we see the face of the galaxy.

[01:07:59]The sombrero galaxy that we're looking at right now is edge on. So if you were to turn that dinner plate so you're looking at its edge, you're just seeing it along the plane, right? So that dark line that you're seeing there is actually the edge of that dinner plate and that glowing center is more in the um toward the center of that plate. So I think this is a really good view of it. Maybe some people might say, "Oh, we kind of maybe we uh uh didn't get too lucky with seeing it nice and beautiful and edge on, but uh seeing beautiful pictures of uh of the sombrero galaxy that Hubble is taken and things, it I think this is a good this is a good view. It's really really good. It's although really also really far away.

[01:08:55]It's about it's over 30 million light years away. Just a correction.

[01:09:02]Whirlpool was about 25 light years away.

[01:09:06]>> Uh 25 light years away.

[01:09:10]>> Oh my gosh. 25 million.

[01:09:14]>> Oh my gosh. I had to I I saw the opportunity. I had to take it.

[01:09:18]>> Only 25.

[01:09:19]>> Only 25. It's not so bad. It's like a bad >> a cosmic a cosmic grocery shop away.

[01:09:27]>> Oh yeah, absolutely. Um uh and so this one's about 31 million light years away.

[01:09:36]>> So this is what it looked like 31 million years ago. It's not what it looks like right now.

[01:09:41]>> No. Yes. Light still takes time to get to us.

[01:09:45]>> Yeah.

[01:09:46]>> Um right. And there's hundreds of billions of stars within just like every galaxy. It has a super massive black hole that is possibly a billion solar masses. Um, ours is about four or five million solar masses.

[01:10:07]Our super massive black hole. Uh, >> is small, isn't it?

[01:10:12]>> Ours is a little bit small. Yeah. Not not very not very big. Um, and it's sombrero is about 30% the size of our Milky Way. So >> which is an interesting difference there isn't it that we have >> a much smaller super mass of black hole the center of our galaxy but we are a much larger galaxy in comparison >> it's almost like it's denser I think right kind of feels that way right >> well it's interesting you bring that up because it does actually have a high population of globular clusters in it >> which of course are those very dense star areas Okay, that's pretty interesting.

[01:10:54]>> Yeah, you might be on to something there.

[01:10:56]>> Okay, there you go. So, just to give you an idea, I believe the last estimate of our Milky Way galaxy is about 100,000 light years across from end to end.

[01:11:08]>> Pretty big.

[01:11:10]>> Uh so, yeah, will be much much smaller than that, right? So, uh I think what's that about 30,000 lighty years across >> something like that depends on if they're talking it depends on if the metric for 30% the size is 30% the diameter or 30% the area which you know >> we're uh we're really bad about uh actually doing this. So >> yeah, it thing is the point is it's smaller.

[01:11:46]>> It is small. It's much smaller compared to ours. Yes.

[01:11:50]>> Mhm.

[01:11:52]>> Fair enough.

[01:11:53]>> But the most important thing about this galaxy is it does in fact look like a sombrero.

[01:12:01]>> Yes, it looked like a hat.

[01:12:03]>> Yeah, >> a lovely. If I could if I could wear a hat like that, I would wear a hat like that. That's that's a cool hat in my opinion.

[01:12:12]>> Yeah. I mean, my head would probably be crushed by the weight and then I would also have to deal with the horrible force the black hole at the center, but semantics.

[01:12:23]>> Semantics.

[01:12:24]>> It's always It's always semantics.

[01:12:26]Semantics will get you. You never know.

[01:12:28]Semantics will always get you. You got to be careful about semantics.

[01:12:31]>> That's true.

[01:12:31]>> Yeah, that is true.

[01:12:32]>> You gotta be careful. You gotta be careful. Yeah. So there is a little bit interesting something about this galaxy.

[01:12:39]When we're looking at this galaxy, we're seeing that nice dark line there. Why are we seeing that dark line? Why why is it that this galaxy looks like this really nice bright bulge and then there's just this sudden black line that goes straight through the top of it.

[01:12:58]Well, that's actually due to an area of star formation.

[01:13:03]Now in our galaxy we do have areas of star formation. You may know them as nebulas.

[01:13:14]Now not all nebulas are born the same and not all nebulas give rise and birth to stars. However, >> okay, >> certain nebulas do. So, the planetary nebula we looked at earlier doesn't.

[01:13:35]So, unfortunately, we can't trust that one to make a nice big amount of stars afterwards. But something like the previously affforementioned tarantula nebula or the one that is actually visible in the northern hemisphere, something like the um I lost it. Orion Nebula, the great Orion Nebula. That is an area of extreme star formation. Now, I saw someone earlier in the chat mention a star called R136A1, which yes, it is a horrible name. I agree completely. But R136A1 is actually a really cool star. And the reason it is such a really cool star is because it is one of the most massive stars in the entire known universe. Now that might sound special, but you got to remember >> our known universe for stars like individual stars is our galaxy and nothing else.

[01:14:39]But you can try to imagine that this star R136A1 is estimated to have a mass over 200 times our sun. So imagine our sun 200 times in one star. And that star and many like it are being formed in this tarantula nebula and in many other nebulas throughout our galaxy.

[01:15:08]And these are these areas of big star formation. However, what makes this so unique is that we see this huge line that actually cuts through some nebula or sombrero galaxy where you're seeing this star formation, which isn't necessarily what we would see if we saw our galaxy from the side.

[01:15:27]Wow. Yeah.

[01:15:31]Yeah. So, if you ever think about why sombrero are really cool, just remember sombrero are cool because they form stars. No, that doesn't sound right.

[01:15:43]>> What?

[01:15:44]>> It's okay. You know, it is it is what it is. Close enough.

[01:15:48]>> Close enough.

[01:15:49]>> Yes. Sombrero are cool because they make stars. That's That's why.

[01:15:54]>> Yes.

[01:15:54]>> So, if you put a sombrero on, you'll be a star.

[01:15:58]>> There we go. Now, that is should be a bumper sticker.

[01:16:01]>> Oh, yeah. That should be that should be I will I will happily have that bumper sticker.

[01:16:06]>> All right, so moving on to our final target of the evening.

[01:16:11]>> What? Already?

[01:16:12]>> No, we're already moving on to our final target.

[01:16:14]>> Well, unfortunately unfortunately we did have to clo we did have to skip a couple because they were um >> uh they were too dim. Yeah.

[01:16:22]>> Well, it wasn't that they were too dim.

[01:16:24]It said they were too low.

[01:16:27]>> E Oh, yes. low.

[01:16:29]>> Normally, we would be able to look at them, but unfortunately, this time they were just too low. However, >> that's okay because I'm going to be honest, galaxies are still quite cooler.

[01:16:40]It's galaxies are better.

[01:16:42]>> I mean, galaxies, yeah, it's like a whole a whole galaxy of possibilities when you look at these, right?

[01:16:50]>> Oh my god.

[01:16:54]>> I had to. I had to.

[01:16:55]>> I know you did, but it's so Oh no, not the puns. They're already coming out.

[01:17:05]>> I mean, hey, >> man.

[01:17:07]>> We're observing cool things on Friday night.

[01:17:10]>> Oh, >> I'm seeing a galaxy. Oh, look at that.

[01:17:13]We are seeing a galaxy.

[01:17:15]>> We got to wait for it to stack a little bit, >> but that's okay. So, we should actually give a name to this. We shouldn't just call it the galaxy. I mean, we could call it the galaxy, but >> better names to call it. So, this >> galaxy, which is slowly coming into view here, >> is called M106.

[01:17:34]Yes, that's it. That's its only name. It It does not have a cool name because apparently they were too busy giving the Carolina Rose Screaming Skull Cluster every single name, and they just forgot that this one needed a name still, unfortunately. But >> I guess I guess that you can't trust can't trust astronomers, man. They just >> making up names.

[01:18:00]>> Yeah, you can't trust astronomers to actually give things proper names. I mean, >> I think that we could come up with way better names than, you know, R136A1.

[01:18:11]Like, what a lame name. You should call it the super awesome mega star that destroys everything in its path or like gargantu. I think we actually already came up with something like that. But yeah, whatever.

[01:18:23]>> Well, >> all I'm saying is we need we need a better naming scheme in astronomy. So >> that's true.

[01:18:28]>> You should, if you are watching, you should 100% email NASA. Don't do this. You should email NASA and tell them, "Hey, we need better names for things in the night sky.

[01:18:43]I'm giving really bad advice."

[01:18:47]>> Oh, yeah. Yeah, they'll get right on that for sure.

[01:18:50]>> Oh yeah, they will. That's that is the most important thing.

[01:18:54]>> So >> that's true.

[01:18:55]>> What are we looking at? We are looking at M106.

[01:18:59]It's a similar galaxy to our own spiral galaxy except that it's not anything like our galaxy whatsoever. There is something very unique about this galaxy.

[01:19:09]Very unique about this galaxy and that is called what is known as a mega mazer.

[01:19:17]I am not making that word up. Somebody else. Oh, I'm sorry. I've been informed that I came up with the wrong name. I do not email NASA. Email the International Astronomical Union. Uh, and uh, you can blame Dr. Joanna Woo for telling me that. So, now I'm now I'm telling you guys the right way to go.

[01:19:37]>> See, I'm I'm That's even worse now. It's It's digging a hole here. Anyways, so M106 is a similar galaxy to our own except that yes, it has something called a mega mazer.

[01:19:50]But what the heck is a mega mazer?

[01:19:53]>> Yes, >> we are.

[01:19:56]>> You may know what a laser is.

[01:19:59]I'm sure if you have a cat, you definitely know what a laser is because cats love laser pointers. Absolutely love laser pointers.

[01:20:09]Lasers are focused beams of light.

[01:20:14]A megaer or just a mer is also a focused beam of light. However, lasers are with visible light. A mer is not with visible light. A maser uses microwaves similar to that appliance you guys have in your kitchen. So there you go. You guys are the source of mazers. Congrats.

[01:20:44]And in fact, actually this is using something similar to our own is to what you have in your kitchen is using water vapor megaers.

[01:20:52]So it's mazers. I believe it is from water vapor within the galaxy.

[01:20:58]>> Yes.

[01:20:59]>> Now, what does this have to do with anything? Well, there's a couple of important parts of this galaxy besides this. One of them is that it has an active galactic nuclei, which we will get into in a little bit here, but let's focus more on this mega mazer and why this mega mazer is so important. So, first off, the Milky Way galaxy does have mazers in it.

[01:21:25]However, mega mazers completely dwarf anything the Milky Way has. In fact, the mega mazers that you you might see, well, you wouldn't see, but NASA or a telescope might see coming from a galaxy are around a 100 million times brighter than any mazers in the Milky Way. So imagine taking our gall or our our or actually even better taking a flashlight and then shining it at your face. It's going to be bright. Now imagine taking the sun and shining it at your face directly there.

[01:22:13]Of course I'm exaggerating just a little bit. Just a little bit. But you can imagine that that is a huge difference in brightness.

[01:22:21]extremely different in brightness. Like that is way brighter than anything we have in the Milky Way and they've actually played a pivotal role in something important to cosmology and astrophysics completely.

[01:22:36]This particular galaxy, M106, the Mega Mer in this galaxy was actually used to help correct our estimate for the universe's age, which is crazy >> that something as simple as a laser made of microwaves could actually tell us, >> yeah, your your age of the universe.

[01:23:02]Wrong. try this one instead.

[01:23:06]And that's really cool. And it's kind of brings a sort of idea that there are so many different things in the universe that can tell us completely seemingly unrelated things that you would expect like, whoa, how did how did we get this from that?

[01:23:26]>> Mhm.

[01:23:27]>> It's pretty crazy.

[01:23:29]>> Wow.

[01:23:29]>> I think I think I've been kind of talking over you here. Sorry about that.

[01:23:33]>> No, no, you're good. I'm just I'm just I'm just amazed at this as well. like uh every time I look at these galaxies, right, just seeing the possibilities in them and especially I didn't know about that actually until um discussing it with you. It's uh it's quite amazing that these techniques uh allow us to navigate the cosmos and figure out things like how old our our universe is, right? cuz I think the previous estimate was was 13.7 and then this mega mer here was put it to 13.8 I think like yeah I think I think that's yeah >> 13.8 8 million or Jeez, million billion years old.

[01:24:23]>> That's pretty old. That's pretty old.

[01:24:25]Yeah.

[01:24:25]>> Wow. That is pretty old. That is pretty old. Uh, okay. And then the one thing about the names, I thought I'd just talk about this for a sec because at least like the M106 or M13, that's the Hercules cluster is M13.

[01:24:41]That was all due to an astronomer and his name was um Charles Messier who came up with this catalog to determine all of the uh all of the objects that he was observing. He was actually trying to find comets actually way back when and uh but of course the technology at the time uh he what he thought were comets they turned out to be like the ring nebula the whirlpool galaxy Hercules cluster and M106 here and so as technology progressed astronomers realized that these objects weren't in fact comets they were actually things that were outside the galaxy or within the galaxy Right. But the catalog stuck, which is why we say M number is because M stands for Messier. But I mean that stars catalog number was definitely not a good name.

[01:25:40]>> I think we should definitely change it to M for Malcolm. Just saying. Just saying. Just saying. Just putting it out there. Another thing another thing you guys we should definitely vote on. We should call the vote. Yes. Let's change it to M for Malcolm.

[01:25:54]I'm just put it out there. I think it's I think it's it's got a nice ring to it, you know. It's got a nice ring to it.

[01:26:00]>> So, I've seen a little bit of discourse in the chat regarding AGN's or active galactic nuclei. And of course, we were talking about this big galaxy and how this big galaxy has indeed an active galactic nuclei in it.

[01:26:18]But what even is an active galactic nuclei? What does that even mean?

[01:26:24]uh active galactic nuclei. Okay. So, it's talking about nuclei, the center of the galaxy, right? And pretty much in almost >> in the center, by the way, >> that big bright thing. Yes.

[01:26:38]In the center of almost every galaxy is a super massive black hole, right? So, that is the galactic nuclei. Okay? Is the black hole. Now, it's active in the sense that it is actually eating stellar mass that's surrounding it, right? And it's collecting all this mass and it's getting sucked into the black hole.

[01:27:05]And what happens is some of that material gets shoots off uh out of the poles of the galaxy, north and south, above and below the galactic plane, and it shoots it off. And so essentially active galactic nuclei just means it is actively >> feeding.

[01:27:26]>> It is actively feeding. It's it's >> growing. It is there is so there's the >> what is known as I think as the it's the accretion disc. Yes. The accretion disc around the >> uh black hole. Basically there is matter from the accretion disc that is going into the black hole. It is it is growing. The black hole itself is growing. It's increasing in size. And as this as this matter enters the black hole, it actually emits a lot of energy, which is what Kyle was talking about where you're seeing this huge amount of energy.

[01:28:04]That's what we're seeing is we're seeing the energy as >> matter gets consumed by the black hole.

[01:28:10]Now, this is really bright. Actually these not in the visible spectrum of course because nothing cool ever happens in the visible spectrum of light for some reason. Don't know why but well I mean life happens in the visible.

[01:28:26]It doesn't matter. Anyways >> basically it's like this mass around the black hole is is getting pulled in by the gravity is one way to look at it. And so the black hole is growing and that is why we call it that that active galactic nuclei. It's actively increasing in its size.

[01:28:48]>> The Milky Way once again holds its beautiful reputation of being completely boring and does not have an active galactic nuclei.

[01:29:01]>> Oh >> yes. Unfortunately, our galaxy, despite being extremely unique in that it hosts life, doesn't have anything else cool about it. Yeah.

[01:29:14]>> Well, it is home.

[01:29:16]>> We chose a really boring galaxy, I think.

[01:29:20]>> I mean, I pref I prefer peaceful. How about that?

[01:29:26]>> For the most part.

[01:29:27]>> That's a good way to put it. I like that, too. Yes, we have a peaceful galaxy.

[01:29:31]Exactly.

[01:29:32]>> Yes. And >> there's no Star Wars going on here.

[01:29:36]>> Yeah.

[01:29:37]Uh okay. And I think that'll bring us back home here to a close. Um we're just kind of seeing we're just nearing the end of our time here. But again, seeing these beautiful planets ga or uh clusters, nebula, galaxies. Um, I always love the perspective of all of this as well. I love the Milky Way. I love how peaceful it is and how we can observe all of these beautiful things from our lowly oasis in the solar system.

[01:30:13]>> Yeah, >> I think it's a wonderful way to wrap it up.

[01:30:19]>> Yes. Do you have any closing remarks, Malcolm?

[01:30:24]I don't think I can put it any way better than that except that uh I still I do still believe that we should put SFU physics into space. I I'm just I'm just saying >> I'm just saying we should we should start, you know, trying to fix the uh the naming convention >> of a astrophysics and astronomy. Yeah, we we really need to do something about that, man. They they've made a mistake there. I'm just saying if you put me in charge I'm just saying it would be better. It would be better.

[01:31:00]>> We got a list. We got a list we need to do.

[01:31:03]>> Yeah. Yeah. We got a list. We got a So, you know, there's lots of things.

[01:31:06]There's tons of things that need to be or tons of things. Haha. See? Get it?

[01:31:11]Cuz someone mentioned Ton 618. Get it?

[01:31:12]Haha.

[01:31:13]>> Anyways, uh so you know there's there's tons of things that need to be renamed.

[01:31:17]I think anyways, you know, like everything just just come up with cooler names like um >> Awesome.

[01:31:24]>> Well, I can't think of anything right now, but you know, I'll get back to you on that.

[01:31:28]>> We'll get back there. Yeah, absolutely.

[01:31:31]Oh, so I think that finishes it up here at the Trate Observatory. Uh thank you once again to Matthew and Roit in the chat for helping out with uh questions and comments. Um, Malcolm, what an amazing job today. Well done. And thank you so much for uh Joanna for uh support on the tech side as well.

[01:31:54]>> Yeah. Well, thank thank you as well to I I want to also give a brief thank you to Kieran and Joanna both for also being helpful. And you may have seen that at some points there was some stuff going on with the picture getting much nicer in the background. Uh, that wasn't always necessarily me or Kyle. Sometimes it was Kieran working in the background.

[01:32:18]I think maybe it was also maybe Joanna.

[01:32:20]I I don't know if she's actually currently on right now, but >> yes, big big thank you to both of them for always being a huge help. And uh, >> yes, and thank you all for joining us as well.

[01:32:34]>> Thank you so much everybody. Have a good evening.