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By holding the mouse
cursor over the image the name and location of objects will
appear.
Our solar system is
located in the so called Orion arm of the Milky Way. The
most notable group of stars here are the ones in the
constellation of Orion - from which the spiral arm gets its
name. All the nebulas and star clusters mentioned bellow are
located in this spiral arm.
The two brightest stars above are (from
right to left) Deneb (Alpha
Cygni) and Sadr
(Gamma Cygni). They form the head to neck
part of the Cygnus (Swan) constellation.
The North American Nebula
(NGC 7000) and the
Pelican Nebula are part of the
same nebula. The brighter parts of the Pelican Nebula have
their own catalogue numbers; NGC 5067,
NGC 5068,
NGC 5070. This is an emission nebula and is located
ca 1900 light years from us. The North American nebula spans
120 arc min of the sky and it is ca 65 light years across. The nebulas NGC 5067 (25 arc min), NGC 5068 (40
arc min) and NGC 5070 (60 arc min) are 15, 20 and 35 light years across,
respectively.
The Gamma Cygnus Nebula
is also an emission nebula and consists of all the pink
nebulosity surrounding the star Sadr (also called Gamma
Cygni). The brighter parts have their own catalogue numbers;
IC
1318A, IC 1318B,
IC 1318C. The Gamma Cygnus
Nebula is also located in the Orion arm, but at a distance
of ca 3700 light years it is further away than the North
American/Pelican Nebula. The brighter parts, IC1318A (50 arc min),
IC1318B (50
arc min) and IC1318C (40 arc min) are 55, 55 and 45 light years across,
respectively.
Nested in the Gamma
Cygnus Nebula lies NGC 6914, a
reflection nebula at a distance of 3700 light years. Its
apparent size is 5 arc min and its real size is 5 light
years.
Also the
Crescent Nebula (NGC
6888) . barely visible in this picture - is an
emission nebula and is located in the Orion arm, but yet a
little further away (ca 4000 light years from us). Even thou
it spans only 18 arc min of the sky it is 20 light years
across.
There are two stars
clusters - barely visible in this picture -
NGC 6910 and
NGC 6913 (M29).
Both are located some 3700-4000 light years away. It is
remarkable that Messier bothered to catalogue NGC 6913. It
almost vanish in the wealth of stars in this region.
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