Celestial hemisphere:  Northern  ·  Constellation: Cygnus (Cyg)
Getting plate-solving status, please wait...
The Tulip Nebula (Sh2-101), JohnEEvans
The Tulip Nebula (Sh2-101)
Powered byPixInsight

The Tulip Nebula (Sh2-101)

Getting plate-solving status, please wait...
The Tulip Nebula (Sh2-101), JohnEEvans
The Tulip Nebula (Sh2-101)
Powered byPixInsight

The Tulip Nebula (Sh2-101)

Equipment

Loading...

Acquisition details

Loading...

Description

The Tulip Nebula (Sh2-101) is about 70 light-years across and lies about 8,000 light-years away.

Also in the field of view is microquasar Cygnus X-1, one of the strongest X-ray sources we receive on Earth. it was the first source of X-rays discovered in the constellation Cygnus and is contains the first black hole to be discovered. In the image find star HDE 226868 (it lies about 1/4 of the way up from the bottom centre). This is the companion blue supergiant star to the black hole. The two orbit each other every 5.6 days.

It is also one of the most rapidly rotating black holes yet discovered. It spins about 800 times per second, which means that a point at the equator of its event horizon is moving at close to the speed of light.

In 1974 Stephen Hawking and Kip Thorne famously placed a bet on whether Cygnus X-1 contained a black hole.

This is an SHO (Hubble Palette) image with RGB stars.

Comments

Sky plot

Sky plot

Histogram

The Tulip Nebula (Sh2-101), JohnEEvans