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Supergiant star Gamma Cygni lies at the center of the Northern
Cross, famous asterism in the constellation Cygnus the Swan.
Known by the proper name Sadr, the bright star also lies at the
center of this gorgeous skyscape, featuring a complex of stars,
dust clouds, and glowing nebulae along the plane of our Milky
Way galaxy. The field of view spans over 4 degrees (eight Full
Moons) on the sky and includes emission nebula IC 1318 and open
star cluster NGC 6910. Left of Gamma Cyg and shaped like two
glowing cosmic wings divided by a long dark dust lane, IC 1318's
popular name is understandably the Butterfly Nebula. Above and
left of Gamma Cyg, are the young, still tightly grouped stars of
NGC 6910. Some distance estimates for Gamma Cyg place it at
around 750 light-years while estimates for IC 1318 and NGC
6910 range from 2,000 to 5,000 light-years.
(text adapted from
APOD)
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Gamma
Cygni Region in
Cignus
Zoomable
version: click here!
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Find
Chart
The
position of the Gamma Cygni region in
Cygnus constellation.
Image from Megastar 4.0. |
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The color image
seen here is based on data coming from a number of
different photographic plates taken in 1991 and 1992 by 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 original file is
about 187 Megapixels with a resolution of about
1 arcsec per pixel.
The image shows an
area of sky large 4.2°
×
3.4° (for
comparison, the full-Moon has a diameter of about 0.5°).
The image is available for Museum,
Planetariums, exhibitions, publishers
and authors in very high-resolution. If interested in
using the image, please read my policy
and e-mail me
with your request.
Copyright:
Davide De Martin (http://www.skyfactory.org).
Credit: Caltech,
Palomar
Observatory, Digitized
Sky Survey. |
