Celestial hemisphere:  Southern  ·  Constellation: Dorado (Dor)  ·  Contains:  NGC 2070  ·  Tarantula nebula
NGC 2070 Tarantula Nebula, Greg Allegretti
NGC 2070 Tarantula Nebula
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NGC 2070 Tarantula Nebula

NGC 2070 Tarantula Nebula, Greg Allegretti
NGC 2070 Tarantula Nebula
Powered byPixInsight

NGC 2070 Tarantula Nebula

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Description

The Tarantula is one of the southern sky’s great dazzling nebulae. This sprawling complex of star-forming regions is located not in our Milky Way but in our nearby satellite galaxy, the Large Magellanic Cloud. The object appears brighter than most nebulae within our galaxy despite its great distance of 160,000 light years in the direction of the constellation Dorado. Several young star clusters can be seen throughout.

In 1987, a supernova lit up one edge of the nebula. At peak brightness, the event reached apparent magnitude 3. Today, the remnant is still closely watched. Its location is marked by the left end of the small red line near the bottom of the image.

This photograph was captured with a 20" f/4.5 remotely controlled telescope at Siding Spring, Australia. Multiple exposures were stacked to produce the final result. The false-colored image was taken through hydrogen-alpha (green), oxygen-III (blue), and Sulfur-II (red) filters. Total exposure was three hours.

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NGC 2070 Tarantula Nebula, Greg Allegretti