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| Bubble Nebula and M52 Open Cluster | |||||||||||||||||||
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| Celestial conflict is evident in this image of the Open Cluster M52 and the Bubble Nebula, in the constellation Cassiopeia. The M52 cluster exudes order, with hundreds of relatively uniform young stars forming together about 20 million years ago from a larger and now dissipated cloud of gas and dust. In counterpoint, the Bubble Nebula is a younger cloud of gas and dust torn asunder by a rare brilliant hot star, called a Wolf-Rayet star. Gas streaming outward from the massive central star simultaneously distrupts the cloud but also compresses the cloud in some areas, accelerating starbirth and possibly formation of planets! The two objects are at similar distances from Earth: M52 at 5,100 light years and the Bubble Nebula at 7,100 light years away. IMAGE DATA: 4" Astro-Physics F/6 refractor, SBIG ST10XME CCD camera, LRGB image with exposures of 75, 15, 15, and 18 minutes, respectively, for a total imaging time of just over 2 hours. The Luminance images used the IDAS filter, and were unbinned. The red, green, and blue images were binned 2x2. Each individual image was 3 minutes. |
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| Music: Strangers in the night | |||||||||||||||||||