Celestial hemisphere:  Northern  ·  Constellation: Auriga (Aur)  ·  Contains:  PGC 135933  ·  PGC 1914875  ·  Sh2-241  ·  VdB65
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vdB 65 & Sh2-241, Gary Imm
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vdB 65 & Sh2-241

Getting plate-solving status, please wait...
vdB 65 & Sh2-241, Gary Imm
Powered byPixInsight

vdB 65 & Sh2-241

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Description

This image captures two rarely imaged objects, a reflection nebula at left (vdB 65) and an emission nebula at right (Sh2-241), located in the constellation of Auriga at a declination of +30 degrees. To the eye, these two objects look similar in apparent size. But their actual sizes are much different.

vdB 65 is illuminated and colored by a 10.6 magnitude star (BD+30 1096) located 3600 light years away. This nebula spans 6 arc-minutes in our apparent view, which corresponds to a diameter of 6 light years. The nebula is part of the large molecular cloud LDN 1557, which blacks out many of the stars around and below this nebula.

Sh2-241 is an emission nebula located much further away, at 15,000 light years. This nebula spans 4 arc-minutes in our apparent view, which corresponds to a diameter of 17 light years.

I like the color contrast between these two nebulae. The background star colors are primarily orange due to the obscuring dust in this region.

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