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Credit & Copyright: Howard Trottier;
Text: Emily Rice
Explanation:
Do we dare believe our eyes?
When we look at images of space, we often wonder whether they are "real",
and just as often the best answer varies.
In this case, the scene appears much as our eyes would see it, because it
was obtained using
RGB (Red, Green, Blue) filters like the
cone cells in our eyes, except collecting light for 19 hours,
not a fraction of a second.
The featured image
was captured over six nights, using a
24-inch diameter telescope
in the
Sierra Nevada Mountains, in
California,
USA.
The bright spiral galaxy at the center (NGC 7497) looks like
it is being grasped by an eerie tendril of a
space ghost, and therein lies the trick.
The galaxy is actually 59 million
light years away, while the nebulosity is MBM 54,
less than one thousand light years away, making it
one of the nearest cool clouds of gas and dust --
galactic cirrus -- within our own
Milky Way Galaxy.
Both are in the constellation of
Pegasus, which
can be seen high overhead from northern latitudes in the autumn.
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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: spiral galaxy - nebula
Publications with words: spiral galaxy - nebula
See also: