Celestial hemisphere:  Northern  ·  Constellation: Cygnus (Cyg)
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Tulip Nebula and Cygnus X-1, Jim Stevenson
Tulip Nebula and Cygnus X-1
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Tulip Nebula and Cygnus X-1

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Tulip Nebula and Cygnus X-1, Jim Stevenson
Tulip Nebula and Cygnus X-1
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Tulip Nebula and Cygnus X-1

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Description

Tulip Nebula in Cygnus

Can you see the flower? This is a hydrogen II emission neblua / star forming region that glows due to the bright young stars within. It's about 6000 light years away, in the belly of Cygnus the swan, swimming up the milky way.

Also interesting (see annotated revision) is a massive X-ray source discovered in 1964 which was the first object accepted to be a black hole, dubbed Cygnus X-1. It forms a pair with the bright star circled on the image, a "blue supergiant" dubbed HDE 226868. The black hole has a mass about 15 times the sun, packed in a diameter of approx. 27 miles (Rhinebeck-Hudson or Bryan-Navasota).

In 1974 Stephen Hawking famously bet with a colleague against the object being a black hole (a joke, really - by that time everybody was pretty sure), the winner to receive a year's subscription to Penthouse. Hawking conceded the bet in 1998, as copious evidence by then pointed to no other conclusion.

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    Tulip Nebula and Cygnus X-1, Jim Stevenson
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  • Tulip Nebula and Cygnus X-1, Jim Stevenson
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Description: Location of Cygnus X-1

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Tulip Nebula and Cygnus X-1, Jim Stevenson