Deep Sky Object in Summer
Around Pipe Nebula to Antares


Date & Time: May 4 2000, 25:08 JST(+0900), 22min. Exp.
Optical: SMC PENTAX f=165mm F2.8, Aperture:F4.0
Auto-guided with Kenko SKYMEMO Equatorial
Camera: PENTAX 67
Film: Ektachrome E200 (+1EV pushed)
Location: Kita-ibaraki city, Ibaraki pref.




LDN1773 / Dark Nebula, type 6 Ir
R.A.17h 30m (rough position)
Dec.-26° (rough position)
Apparent Size420' x 120'
Real SizeAbout 100 light yrs.
Magnitude-
DistanceN/A
This Milky Way field image shows you very complicated dark nebulae around between Sagittarius and Scorpius. Especially it's noticeable a striking dark flow from the Milky Way to north of Antares, alpha Sco. You can find rho Ophiuchi at the western end of the flow and dimmed bluish light is being emitted. This diffused nebula has a number of IC4603-4, just a tiny part of the vast dark nebula stream. And there are many other red and orange diffused nebulae around Antares, one of most colorful, beautiful, and photogenic star fields in heavens.
You can detect a huge lump of dark nebula stretched in east-west direction on the left-hand side of picture. The dark nebula has a span of about 7 degrees and real length is estimated about 100 light years. You can appreciate the nebula as a big hole in the Milky Way only with binoculars under conditioned sky. This patch in the Milky Way has a catalogue number of "LDN 1773" and a nickname of "Pipe Nebula" from its shape.


To image with outlines & names of nebulae (76KB)




LBN1117

Close-up of Pipe nebula


Copyright(c) 2000 by Naoyuki Kurita, All rights reserved.
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