Back transplant

M57 Ring Nebula in Lyra

Visited the hospital today and have had it confirmed that its my back and not my hip that has caused my present lack of mobility. Am now awaiting a MRI scan before they decide what treatment is best for me. In the meantime I have managed to work out some of the fancy facilities for image processing that are available in the French software IRIS. The above image, which was taken by me last summer, has already featured on my Cabine blog in its enlarged and blurry form. The above image was improved by running a Richardson-Lucy de-convolution algorithm (RL2) and then by adjusting the resultant image in Photoshop. Thought I was dead smart for ten minutes then in a rash moment looked at some of the astro images posted this week on the Stargazers Lounge astronomy forum. In the words of my old friend Paul Chamberlain "Stop fooling yourself Roberts!" or to quote Burgess Meredith "You're a bum Rock".
The Ring Nebula represents the aftermath of a star which having used all its hydrogen in the fusion process that has kept it radiating light for millions of years, has then swollen to become a red giant star (similar to Betelgeuse in Orion as observable now). The star having run out of fuel to sustain pressure against gravity has subsequently collapsed and in the process blown away outer shells of gas and dust just like a smoke ring. The gas glows as it is ionised by radiation from the remnant hot white dwarf star at the centre of the ring. The white dwarf is extremely small, extremely dense and very hot. Eventually the nebula will disappear and the white dwarf will cool and reach equilibrium with interstellar space. The original (progenitor) star would have been very similar in mass and temperature to our sun. This fate therefore awaits our local star "The Sun" but not for a very very long time!

The Trapezium in M42 Orion

This is another image previously published on the blog and now treated to the IRIS and Photoshop treatment. More ionised gas, this time molecular hydrogen being illuminated by the ionising ultra-violet light emanating from the newborn Trapezium stars