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May 22, 2015
A Dark and Dusty Sky
Image Credit & Copyright: Scott Rosen
Courtesy of http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/astropix.html
A Dark and Dusty Sky
Image Credit & Copyright: Scott Rosen
Courtesy of http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/astropix.html
In the dusty sky toward the constellation Taurus and the
Orion Arm
of our Milky Way Galaxy,
this broad mosaic follows
dark and faint reflection nebulae along the region's fertile
molecular cloud.
The six degree wide
field
of view starts with long dark nebula
LDN 1495
stretching from the lower left, and extends beyond the
(upside down) bird-like visage of the Baby Eagle Nebula,
LBN 777,
at lower right.
Small bluish reflection nebulae surround scattered fainter
Taurus stars, sights often skipped over in favor
of the constellation's better known, brighter celestial
spectacles.
Associated with the young, variable star
RY Tau, the yellowish
nebula VdB 27 is toward the upper left.
Only 400 light-years or so distant, the
Taurus molecular cloud is
one of the closest regions of low-mass
star formation.
At that distance this dark vista would span over 40 light-years.
