Nebula up close

[corporateamerica]

I know that the details and colors of nebula photos are changed and amplified in order to get as much information as possible from them, but I was wondering what nebula would look like from, say, a couple light years out. If earth was located in the middle of the Orion nebula, would we be surrounded by a stunning display of colorful, structured plumes of dust, or would it be more like a faint, foggy type of effect?<br /> <br />I have no problem marveling at the images we receive from Hubble, but i can't help but wonder what they would look like up close.

 

[qso1]

I've wondered that myself. I don't know if anyone really knows but I suspect it could appear a variety of ways. Say for example, we were inside a nebula but no stars were near enough to really illuminate the gasses, the nebula might not even be visible to us on the ground. The gas would be spread so thin and would be far enough from our sun not to be visible.<br /><br />But if there were a star within say half a light year, a particularly bright star partly enveloped in nebula dust and gas and that dust and gas formed a backdrop relative to us. It would probably be quite a spectacular and colorful night sky for us.<br /><br />BTW, welcome to SDC and congrats on an excellent post. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <p><strong>My borrowed quote for the time being:</strong></p><p><em>There are three kinds of people in life. Those who make it happen, those who watch it happen...and those who do not know what happened.</em></p> </div>

 

[search]

I believe if we would be inside of a nebula we would be limited in our view of the night sky. As qso1 said depends pretty much on distance. However since the nebula is the birth place of stars it may be that it would be a very bright night sky if we would be close to forming stars and we would not be able to see the stars outside the nebula since they would be obscured because of the dust and gases of the nebula.<br />Check this out<br />http://www.sdsc.edu/~nadeau/PhD/VisualizingStarsAndEmissionNebulas.pdf

 

[qso1]

Excellent link. I was thinking about modelling a nebula in Lightwave and setting it up as though it were in our solar system. Problem is, Lightwave does not simulate the actual lighting or physics of such a scenario. I'd have to guess what it would look like close up.<br /><br />That last image on the .pdf, the radiosity image, that could be one way a nebula could be backlit by several stars and viewed from Earth. The stars might however be so close, life on earth may not be able to evolve to our level for us to appreciate the view. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <p><strong>My borrowed quote for the time being:</strong></p><p><em>There are three kinds of people in life. Those who make it happen, those who watch it happen...and those who do not know what happened.</em></p> </div>

 

[search]

Here is some Hubble views<br />http://hubblesite.org/newscenter/archive/releases/nebula/<br />I like this one<br />http://www.space.com/imageoftheday/image_of_day_040812.html

 

[qso1]

Nice links, thanks.<br /><br />One of the most famous Hubble images was one of the Eagle nebula which was zoomed in so close, you could see individual stars within the clouds of dust and gas. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <p><strong>My borrowed quote for the time being:</strong></p><p><em>There are three kinds of people in life. Those who make it happen, those who watch it happen...and those who do not know what happened.</em></p> </div>

 

[search]

Yes its great<br />http://nssdc.gsfc.nasa.gov/photo_gallery/photogallery-astro-nebula.html