Celestial hemisphere:  Southern  ·  Constellation: Sagittarius (Sgr)  ·  Contains:  Checkmark Nebula  ·  IC 4706  ·  IC 4707  ·  Lobster Nebula  ·  M 17  ·  NGC 6618  ·  Swan Nebula  ·  omega Nebula
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Omega Nebula, NuTek

Omega Nebula

Getting plate-solving status, please wait...
Omega Nebula, NuTek

Omega Nebula

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Description

The Omega Nebula (aka Messier 17, M17) is 5,500 light years away. It's hot gases contain some of the newest stars in our Milky Way galaxy. They are only 1 million years old.... Pretty young considering our Sun is 4.6 Billion (!!) years old.

I've processed these images so the various wavelengths of Hydrogen, Oxygen and Sulfur stand out as Red, Blues and Greens. This is the same processing that the Hubble images uses.

Check out https://hubblesite.org/.../the-meaning-of-light-and-color for some "light" reading on how the Hubble "sees" colors.

Note:  I was surprised the Omega nebula pictures turned out as bright as I was only able to capture 25 minutes exposure. My main target was the Cygnus Wall, but it was blocked by trees till 10:30pm so I found a few alternative nebulae (this and the Lagoon nebula) to pass the time. I'm glad I did as I find them pretty. Always fun to find something new to photograph.

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Omega Nebula, NuTek