Nebula Educational Astronomy Posters, Prints & Charts
for the science classroom and home schoolers.

The Cone Nebula

Poster Text: In this photograph the “cone” itself is similiar to the Horsehead nebula, a dusty protuberance illuminated by a bright star. Also, here, evident as curious low contrast wisps and loops, are some of the largest Herbig-Haro objects known. These low contrast features are often associated with outflows from young stars. As in the Horsehead, the vivid red back-illumination is provided by the glowing surface of a molecular cloud illuminated by several very hot stars. This image is one of a few made at optical wavelengths to reveal subtle signs of newly formed but still hidden stars, not yet free of their dust cocoon. Light from these stars is strongly scattered, partly absorbed and then reflected by the dust and is seen as small yellow nebulae against the red backdrop. Soon, these stars too will blow away their dusty fronds and become as visible as those in the foreground.

This picture was made from a series of three photographic plates taken at the prime focus of the 3.9m Anglo-Australian Telescope located on Siding Spring Mountain, New South Wales, Wales, Australia. The photograph was produced by combining images taken separately in red, green, and blue light. This complex process was necessary because color films are not sensitive enough to record very faint objects. This picture is an accurate reflection of the colors of the universe, much as the eye might see them if it could be made a million times more sensitive.

Rosette Nebula

Poster Text: This stunning image of the Rosette Nebula was taken with the Mosaic camera at the National Science Foundation’s 0.9 meter telescope on Kitt Peak. Located in the constellation of Monoceros, the Unicorn, the Rosette is a prominent star formation region. It is glowing due to ultraviolet light from the hot blue stars, whose winds also cleared the central hole. The Rosette is enormously large, covering an area more than six times the area of the full moon. This color image was created by combining emissions-like images in Hydrogen-alpha (red), Oxygen (green) and Sulfer (blue).

Tarantula Nebula

Part of the Supernova in Vela

Poster Text: About 120 centuries ago an inconspicious star in the constellation of Vela suddenly brightened by about a million times to rival the moon as the brightest object in the night sky. This photograph shows a small part of a huge, expanding nebulous shell which now surrounds the site of the explosion. Near the center of the nebula (not seen here) is the Vela pulsar, a rapidly spinning neutron star only a few kilometers in diameter, the remnant of the star that exploded. The tiny object spins about eleven times a second and is among the faintest stars ever studied, a far cry from it’s brief glory as one of the brightest ever seen. The green line is the trail of an earth-orbiting satellite that crossed the field of view during the exposure of the green-light plate that used to make the color picture.

This picture was made from a series of three photographic plates taken at the prime focus of the 3.9 m Anglo-Australian Telescope located on Siding Spring Mountain, New South Wales, Australia. The photograph was produced by combining images taken separately in red, green, and blue light. This complex process was necessary because color films are not sensitive enough to record very faint objects. This picture is an accurate reflection of the colors of the Universe, much as the eye might see them if it could be made a million times more sensitive.

Harlow Shapley
b. 11-2-1885; Nashville, MO
d. 10-20-1972

Harlow Shapley was one of the first astronomers to realize the Milky Way Galaxy was larger than previously thought and the Earth's Sun was in a “nondescript” area of the galaxy. He was one of the participants in the “Great Debate” of 1920 on the nature of nebulas.

Shapley had dropped out of school with a 5th grade education, but studied at home and went back to high school to become the class valedictorian. He then went to the University of Missouri, ending up with an astronomy degree. Eventually he became head of Harvard University Observatory and was also a victim of McCarthyism.