Celestial hemisphere:  Northern  ·  Constellation: Orion (Ori)  ·  Contains:  IC 2159  ·  NGC 2174  ·  NGC 2175  ·  Sh2-252
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NGC2174, Monkey Head Nebula, photonjunkie
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NGC2174, Monkey Head Nebula

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NGC2174, Monkey Head Nebula, photonjunkie
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NGC2174, Monkey Head Nebula

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Description

✨📸A shot I did 2 weeks ago of a nebula in our Milkyway called the monkey head nebula (catalog ngc2174). Can you see that Baboon head? 😝 This 6.5k light-years away emission gas cloud consists of mostly Hydrogen and Oxygen. Surrounding stars constantly excite the gas atoms with their violent UV radiation. As the electrons of the atoms enter higher energy state and drop back down (quantum leap, deexcitation), they emit photos (light) which is of a very distinct wavelength for specific for each atom. The golden color you see in that image is the Hydrogen II (or n=2) emission line and the cyan color is Oxygen III (or n=3). The roman numeral specifies the energy level (n) the electron was on before dropping back to ground state.

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  • Final
    NGC2174, Monkey Head Nebula, photonjunkie
    Original
    NGC2174, Monkey Head Nebula, photonjunkie
    B
    NGC2174, Monkey Head Nebula, photonjunkie
    C

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NGC2174, Monkey Head Nebula, photonjunkie