Sunday, February 7, 2010

08/21/2006 Tiny Bubble


Here is my image from this past Friday night's backyard session. It did get cloudy after midnight but I was able to continue acquiring image data until about 2 a.m. in this region of the sky.
There are several named objects in this photo. The open star cluster M52 is the dense concentration of stars near the upper right; below and to the left slightly is another open cluster known as Czernik 43. And near the bottom right, the Bubble Nebula (NGC 7635) glows in red.
The cool thing about the Bubble Nebula is that it really is a bubble in the surrounding cloud of gas. The bright star in this nebula is blowing "stellar wind" outward, carving a pocket in the cloud. It's huge compared to our perspective, but on a universe scale it's just a tiny bubble. Next time I see a champagne glass I'm going to think about the Bubble Nebula!

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