Celestial hemisphere:  Northern  ·  Constellation: Perseus (Per)  ·  Contains:  NGC 1579
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NGC 1579 Northern Trifid Nebula in Perseus, Mark Wetzel
NGC 1579 Northern Trifid Nebula in Perseus
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NGC 1579 Northern Trifid Nebula in Perseus

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NGC 1579 Northern Trifid Nebula in Perseus, Mark Wetzel
NGC 1579 Northern Trifid Nebula in Perseus
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NGC 1579 Northern Trifid Nebula in Perseus

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Description

Arizona City, Arizona

January 15-30, 2021

NGC 1579 is a reflection nebula in the constellation Perseus. It was captured with broadband filters, Luminance, Red, Green and Blue. I tried to collect Hydrogen-alpha data, but 10 minute exposures provided a very faint and noisy stacked image. I set the camera rotation to 340 degrees equatorial for the primary object of the night, Thor’s Helmet, not the best composition for NGC 1579. I imaged The Northern Trifid Nebula while waiting for Sirius and Thor to rise high enough in the sky. Thus, I did not collect as many subframes as needed to bring out more detail and color in the blue reflection areas and the dark clouds. Furthermore, the seeing was so-so and there were several nights with high, thin clouds. I left the image train optical defects in the image; the large deflection spikes in the bright star near the upper left corner and the micro-reflections between the ASI 1600MM sensor and the protection window as shown in the bright star right of center.

The Northern Trifid Nebula is a bright reflection nebula in a large cloud of gas and dust. It is 2,100 light-years away from Earth and it is 3 light-years across. The reddish glow is not Ha emission from a gas cloud. 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 (Nasa APOD).

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