Celestial hemisphere:  Northern  ·  Constellation: Perseus (Per)  ·  Contains:  NGC 1579
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NGC 1579 Trifid of the North, Mathieu Guinot
NGC 1579 Trifid of the North
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NGC 1579 Trifid of the North

Getting plate-solving status, please wait...
NGC 1579 Trifid of the North, Mathieu Guinot
NGC 1579 Trifid of the North
Powered byPixInsight

NGC 1579 Trifid of the North

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Description

The colorful NGC 1579 resembles the better known Trifid Nebula, but lies much farther north in planet Earth's sky, in the constellation Perseus.
Located about 2,100 light-years away, NGC 1579 is, like the Trifid, a study in contrasting blue and red colors, with dark dust lanes prominent in the nebula's central regions.
In both, dust reflects starlight to produce beautiful blue reflection nebulae. But unlike the Trifid, in NGC 1579 the reddish glow is not emission from clouds of glowing hydrogen gas excited by ultraviolet light from a nearby hot star. Instead, the dust in NGC 1579 drastically diminishes, reddens, and scatters the light from an embedded, extremely young, massive star, itself a strong emitter of the characteristic red hydrogen alpha light.

Data collected by  my friend Jean Claude Mario from Nice (France) during winter and processed by me in April 2023.

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NGC 1579 Trifid of the North, Mathieu Guinot