Celestial hemisphere:  Southern  ·  Constellation: Ophiuchus (Oph)  ·  Contains:  Box nebula  ·  NGC 6309
NGC-6309 The Box Nebula, Oleg Zaharciuc
NGC-6309 The Box Nebula
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NGC-6309 The Box Nebula, Oleg Zaharciuc
NGC-6309 The Box Nebula
Powered byPixInsight

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Description

Located in the eastern path of the Milky Way in southern Ophiuchus 3 degrees north- northeast of Eta Ophiuchi (Sabik), and not all that far from the center of the Galaxy, lies NGC 6309. Small and compact, the telescope readily reveals a complex elliptical structure 19 X 10 seconds of arc across. Called "bipolar" for the two bright lobes, NGC 6309 is actually more quadripolar. Surrounding the compact object seen here is an outer shell more than three times as large, which probably represents earlier stages of mass loss. Measures of distance are all over the place, but center on about 7000 light years, a value that should not be taken very seriously. If at that distance, the inner object averages just over half a light year across, while the diameter of the outer shell (invisible here) is around two light years, half the distance between the Sun and Alpha Centauri. The inner shell expands at about 20 to 40 kilometers per second, increasing outward. Intervening interstellar dust, which fills the Milky Way, dims the object at visual wavelengths by around two magnitudes.

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NGC-6309 The Box Nebula, Oleg Zaharciuc