Wikipedia:Featured picture candidates/Stellar Nursery

Stellar nursery seen by the Spitzer Space Telescope

Voting period is over. Please don't add any new votes. Voting period ends on 6 Apr 2019 at 23:03:28 (UTC)

Original – Westerhout 40 is a stellar nursery found in the constellation Serpens. This image, taken by the Spitzer Space Telescope, showcases both the young star cluster (center of the nebula) as well as the remnants of the interstellar cloud from which the cluster formed. In this image the nebula takes on the appearance of a "butterfly" due to bubbles in the gas cloud blown by radiation and winds from the hot, newborn stars. The image was taken by Spitzer's IRAC camera in several infrared bands that were combined to create this picture in false color.

Reason

Large-scale view of one of the nearest stellar nurseries. 1) The image meets a high technical standard because it was taken by a NASA telescope and produced by professionals at JPL, and therefore represents the best possible image of this nebula. 2) This is the full-size JPEG image and represents the highest resolution of the Spitzer Space Telescope. 3) The W40 region is astronomically important because it is one of the nearest sites of massive star formation in our galaxy, and the infrared image by Spitzer makes the nebula look spectacular. 4) It was released by NASA, so it is free. 5) I have used this image to illustrate the article Westerhout 40. 6) The information can be verified by the description in the JPL image release [1]. 7) The image's description on the Wikimedia Commons page is complete and correct.

Articles in which this image appears

Westerhout 40 +1

FP category for this image

Wikipedia:Featured pictures/Space/Looking out

Creator

NASA/JPL-Caltech

• Support as nominator – OtterAM (talk) 23:03, 27 March 2019 (UTC)
• Support - Strikingly beautiful image. --Janke | Talk 08:29, 28 March 2019 (UTC)
• Support. Note: I re-exported the image from the TIFF at the source with a higher quality setting. MER-C 21:11, 28 March 2019 (UTC)
• Comment – leaning to support but there are a few streaks that can be photoshopped and removed, at x,y=(1965,1030), (1610,2330), (1675,2330), (1870,2330), (2625,1560). They are faintly visible at full size (100%) and easy to see at 200%. Bammesk (talk) 01:20, 29 March 2019 (UTC)

I believe the lines you noticed are an effect called "muxbleed" which affects data from infrared detectors at cryogenic temperatures. Although these can be partially corrected in the data [2], they remain faintly visible in the images. I don't own photoshop (or have experience using it), but if someone else wants to see if they can photoshop these out, they are welcome to try. OtterAM (talk) 03:19, 29 March 2019 (UTC)

I meant photoshop in a generic sense. Free programs such as GIMP are available on the web and can be used for touchups. If no one does the touchup, I will do it in a day or two. Bammesk (talk) 03:41, 29 March 2019 (UTC)

Thanks for the info about GIMP, I'll try to teach myself. In the meantime, if you'd like to do the touch-ups you mentioned, that would be great! OtterAM (talk) 05:58, 30 March 2019 (UTC)

Done. Bammesk (talk) 13:31, 30 March 2019 (UTC)

• Support – Bammesk (talk) 13:31, 30 March 2019 (UTC)
• Support Nice, high EV. --Yann (talk) 15:11, 2 April 2019 (UTC)

Promoted File:The Spitzer Space Telescope's view of W40.jpg --Armbrust ^{The Homunculus} 01:39, 7 April 2019 (UTC)