Discovering Star Life Cycles
in Galactic Fireworks
Hi my name is Jesus Maiz. I’m a European Space Agency Scientist at the Space Telescope Science Institute. I am finding out new things about clusters of massive stars.
Your task is to capture an image of NGC 4214 – a galaxy 13 million light years away, which contains some of the clusters I am studying. Then try to find areas of the galaxy that show stars going through different stages of their lifecycles.
Take three images of NGC 4214 in different wavelengths using HST’s Wide Field Planetary Camera 2
Save each image in your work file and then import them into Registax. Adjust the result until you see the greatest amount of detail.
Filters used were F336W (UV), F502N ([O III]), F555W (visible broadband), F656N (H-alpha), F702N (red broadband), F814W (IR)
Position: R.A. 12h 15m 40s Dec. +36° 19' 36'' constellation Canes Venatici
The principle scientists I worked with obtaining this HST data were: J. MacKenty, C. Norman (JHU), N. Walborn (STScI), R. Burg (JHU), R. Griffiths (Carnegie Mellon University), Rosemary Wyse (JHU)
ANALYSING RESULTS
Now try to find different stages of star life cycles in the image. Use your knowledge from lessons.
Need more help? click here-
Print out a copy of this inverted NGC 4214 image and annotate it to show where you think each stage is happening.
When you have worked out as much as you can, click below to get a map that I have annotated
Maps in power point viewer presentation