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It may look to
some like a duck, but it lays stars instead of eggs. In the center of this
image lies Barnard 163, a nebula of molecular gas and dust so
thick that visible light can't shine through it. With a wing span
measured in light years, Barnard 163's insides are surely colder than
its exterior, allowing conditions where gas can clump and eventually
form stars. Barnard 163 lies about 3,000 light years from Earth toward
the constellation of Cepheus the King. The red glow in the background
results from IC 1396, a large emission nebula that houses the Elephant's
Trunk Nebula. Finding Barnard 163 in an image of its greater emission
nebula IC 1396 can be a challenge, but it's possible.
In order to produce the color image
seen here, I worked with data coming from 4
different photographic plates taken at Palomar Observatory
between 1989 and 1991. The original file is
3,252
× 3,072
pixels with a resolution of about 1 arcsec per pixel. The image show an
area of sky large 0.9°
×
0.85° (for
comparison, the full-Moon is about 0.5° in diameter). Other images of the same celestial field found online
This image is a composite from black and white images taken with the Palomar Observatory's 48-inch (1.2-meter) Samuel Oschin Telescope as a part of the second National Geographic Palomar Observatory Sky Survey (POSS II). The images were recorded on two type of glass photographic plates - one sensitive to red light and the other to blue light and later they were digitized. Credit: Caltech, Palomar Observatory, Digitized Sky Survey. |
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