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Jul 2, 2018
From the Galactic Plane through Antares
Image Credit & Copyright: License Rogelio Bernal Andreo (Deep Sky Colors)
Courtesy of http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/astropix.html
From the Galactic Plane through Antares
Image Credit & Copyright: License Rogelio Bernal Andreo (Deep Sky Colors)
Courtesy of http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/astropix.html
Behold one of the most photogenic regions of the night sky, captured impressively.
Featured, the band of our
Milky Way Galaxy runs diagonally along the far left, while the
colorful Rho Ophiuchus
region including the bright orange star
Antares is visible just right of center,
and the nebula
Sharpless 1
(Sh2-1) appears on the far right.
Visible in front of the
Milk Way band are several famous nebulas including the
Eagle Nebula (M16), the
Trifid Nebula (M21), and the
Lagoon Nebula (M8).
Other notable nebulas include the
Pipe and
Blue Horsehead.
In general,
red emanates from nebulas glowing in the light of exited
hydrogen gas, while blue marks
interstellar dust preferentially
reflecting the light of bright young stars.
Thick dust appears otherwise dark brown.
Large balls of stars visible include the globular clusters
M4,
M9,
M19,
M28, and
M80,
each marked on the
annotated companion image.
This extremely wide field -- about 50 degrees across -- spans the constellations of
Sagittarius is on the lower left,
Serpens on the upper left,
Ophiuchus
across the middle, and
Scorpius on the right.
It took over 100 hours of sky imaging, combined with
meticulous planning and digital processing, to create this image.
