The Tulip Nebula (Sharpless 2-101) is an emission nebula around 8,000 light years distant in the constellation of Cygnus. The nebula is ionized by young, energetic stars which include HDE 227018 – the bright star close to the small blue ‘arc’ of gas just below the centre of the main nebula.

Cygnus X-1 is a high-mass X-Ray binary consisting of a black hole accreting mass from a supergiant star HD 226868. North of Cygnus X-1 there is a shockwave of hot gas expanding at around 100-360 km/s The Tulip Nebula (Sharpless 2-101) is an emission nebula around 8,000 light years distant in the constellation of Cygnus. The nebula is ionized by young, energetic stars which include HDE 227018 – the bright star close to the small blue ‘arc’ of gas just below the centre of the main nebula.

Cygnus X-1 is a high-mass X-Ray binary consisting of a black hole accreting mass from a supergiant star HD 226868. North of Cygnus X-1 there is a shockwave of hot gas expanding at around 100-360 km/s [ (Sell et al, 'Shell-Shocked: The Interstellar Medium Near Cygnus X-1', Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society; 2014). This shockwave is the faint blue arc visible in the lower right quadrant of this image.

This is a two panel SHO mosaic. Data were collected in two sessions and from two locations. The first tranche of data was collected between 14 July and 18 September 2018 from my home observatory in the UK. More data were captured between 13 May and 7 July 2019 from an imaging rig in Spain that is privately-owned and remotely-operated by Barry Wilson and me. The same telescope, camera and filters were used throughout.

Technical details:

Telescope: TEC 140ED

Camera: QSI 690 WSG

Filters: Astrodon

Mounts: Mesu 200 & 10 Micron GM 1000HPS

Ha: 68 x 1200s

OIII: 62 x 1200s

SII: 48 x 1200s

A total of 59 hours and 20 minutes exposure.

Data Capture: Steve Milne

Image Processing: Steve Milne