For those who have aperture, try your luck around 5h 43m +28 25’. There's a little "haze" that says: "Hey. I'm here!"

And Aodhhan? Man, I just got lost in this image… It's pretty incredible! Take a look at this:

Photo

It isn't as beautiful, but it's a lot more realistic as to what you can see visually.

This boggles the mind. Could someone, perhaps create an artist's impression of this with a night time picture of perhaps a house on a barren plain with the moon low in the sky…then this structure behind it (with its brightness increased of course.) I just want to picture it's size.

Thank you. It would also amaze others how something so distant could look this big from this part of the Galaxy.

Jon? We may very well have been blasted once. According to Brian Fields:

"Recent experiments have uncovered evidence that a star exploded near the Earth about 3 million years ago. Radioactive iron atoms have been found in ancient samples of of deep-ocean material, and are likely to be debris from this explosion. Newly published, high-quality data spectacularly confirm this radioactive signal, and for the first time allow sea sediments to be used as a telescope, probing the nuclear fires that power exploding stars. Furthermore, an explosion so close to to Earth was probably a "near-miss," which emitted intense and possibly harmful radiation. The resulting environmental damage may even have led to extinction of species which were the most vulnerable to this radiation."

Once bitten… Twice shy? Somehow I have a feeling that not even SPF6000 would help.

And Tyler is right. The "circle of life" extends into the cosmos.

Thanks for recognizing the Star Trek episode, "The Doomsday Machine". Your kind comments make me smile!

As for supernova? Well, the "accepted safe distance" is from 160 to 200 light years away. The reality check is that we just really don't know what IS a safe distance and what isn't. The more we learn, the more it seems we tend to realign our thinking. Have we found every supernova remnant out there? And do we know exactly how far they can expand?

Until that day, we'll probably never know how far away "safe" truly is.

Live long and prosper….

I guess you couldn't kill it by flying a starship down its maw like Kirk did.

I will also say that connecting the two (Simeis 147 and the Doomsday Machine) is an awesome display of free-association. I really mean that, its a gift, I say.

And now that I'm thinking of it, it also kind of reminds me of the Romulan Plasma Torpedo, but without the awesome power!