Colorful Cosmic Reflections
This striking image, streaked with bright swathes of color, captures the beautiful reflection nebula NGC 2170. The diffuse clouds of interstellar dust in the nebula scatter and reflect light from nearby stars, creating this vividly colorful scene. Dust grains reflect blue light from hot stars embedded in the nebula. And warm hydrogen gas glows a deep red. Seen as dark tendrils, dust also absorbs the light from stars and gas behind it. This particular nebula lies in the constellation Monoceros (The Unicorn) — a faint constellation on the celestial equator. It was observed using the SMARTS 0.9-meter Telescope at Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory in Chile, a Program of NSF’s NOIRLab.
Credit:CTIO/NOIRLab/NSF/AURA
Acknowledgments: Travis Rector (University of Alaska Anchorage), Mahdi Zamani & Davide de Martin
About the Image
| Id: | iotw2048a |
| Type: | Observation |
| Release date: | Nov. 25, 2020, 4 p.m. |
| Size: | 2032 x 1841 px |
About the Object
Wallpapers
Coordinates
| Position (RA): | 6 7 49.16 |
| Position (Dec): | -6° 22' 56.55" |
| Field of view: | 13.59 x 12.32 arcminutes |
| Orientation: | North is 90.2° right of vertical |
Colors & filters
| Band | Wave-length | Tele-scope |
|---|---|---|
| Optical g | 475 nm | SMARTS–GSU 0.9-meter Telescope Tek2K |
| Optical r | 626 nm | SMARTS–GSU 0.9-meter Telescope Tek2K |
| Optical i | 773 nm | SMARTS–GSU 0.9-meter Telescope Tek2K |
| Optical H-alpha | 656 nm | SMARTS–GSU 0.9-meter Telescope Tek2K |