|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
Looking toward the constellation Cygnus, a stunning and complex region of nebulae strewn along the plane of our Milky Way galaxy is revealed in this sky view. The image emphasizes cosmic gas clouds in a wide field centered on the Sharpless 101 Nebula, a faint emission type nebula known also as Tulip Nebula, in the well known Northern Cross asterism. These Cygnus nebulosities are all located about 2,000 light-years away. Along with the Sun, they lie within the Orion spiral arm of our galaxy.
In order to produce the color image seen
here, I worked with data coming from
2 different photographic plates taken at Palomar Observatory between 1989 and 1991.
The original file is 17,394x16,609
pixels with a resolution of about 1 arcsec per pixel. The image show an area
of sky large 4.8° x 4.6° (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. |
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
