Daily Telescope: A monster protostar in a distant nebula

Source:https://arstechnica.com/space/2024/01/daily-telescope-a-monster-protostar-in-a-distant-nebula/ Daily Telescope: A monster protostar in a distant nebula 2024-01-11 21:48:12

Enlarge / A great view of NGC 7538.
Paul Buckley

Welcome to the Daily Telescope. There is a little too much darkness in this world and not enough light, a little too much pseudoscience and not enough science. We'll let other publications offer you a daily horoscope. At Ars Technica, we're going to take a different route, finding inspiration from very real images of a universe that is filled with stars and wonder.

Good morning. It's January 11, and today's image showcases a diffuse nebula known as NGC 7538, found in the constellation Cepheus.

Located some 9,000 light-years from Earth, the nebula is a region of active star formation and produces a large amount of hydrogen—which shows up in this image. The nebula contains a shockingly large protostar that is, astronomers estimate, some 300 times larger than our Solar System and has a mass of 2,000 Suns. Even as astronomical objects go, that's gargantuan.

Paul Buckley submitted today's photo, which he captured from his backyard in Elma, New York, located not far from Buffalo. He took the image over the first three days of last September. This image represents 100 six-minute narrowband images and 50 two-minute RGB images using his Celestron 9.25-inch Edge HD telescope.

I think it's lovely.

Source: Paul Buckley

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Food, Health, Science, Space, Space Craft, SpaceX Source:https://arstechnica.com/space/2024/01/daily-telescope-a-monster-protostar-in-a-distant-nebula/