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Credit & Copyright: Michael Miller
Explanation:
Open star cluster NGC 7380 is still embedded in
its natal cloud
of interstellar gas and dust popularly known as the
Wizard Nebula.
Seen with foreground and background stars
along the
plane of our Milky Way galaxy
it lies some 8,000 light-years distant, toward the constellation
Cepheus.
A full moon would easily fit inside this telescopic view of
the 4 million year
young
cluster and associated nebula, normally
much too faint to be seen by eye.
Made with telescope and camera firmly planted on Earth,
the image reveals multi light-year sized shapes and structures
within the Wizard in a color palette made
popular in Hubble Space Telescope images.
Recorded with narrowband filters, the visible wavelength light
from the nebula's hydrogen, oxygen, and sulfur atoms is transformed
into green, blue, and red colors in the final digital composite.
But there is still a
trick
up the Wizard's sleeve.
Sliding your cursor over the image
(or following this
link)
will make the stars disappear, leaving only the cosmic gas and
dust of the Wizard Nebula.
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NASA Web Site Statements, Warnings, and Disclaimers
NASA Official: Jay Norris. Specific rights apply.
A service of: LHEA at NASA / GSFC
& Michigan Tech. U.
Based on Astronomy Picture
Of the Day
Publications with keywords: open cluster - nebula
Publications with words: open cluster - nebula
See also: