NGC 6559： 礁湖星云东侧的天体
NGC 6559: East of the Lagoon
Image Credit & Copyright: Roberto Sartori
Explanation: Slide your telescope just east of the Lagoon Nebula to find this alluring field of view in the rich starfields of the constellation Sagittarius toward the central Milky Way. Of course the Lagoon nebula is also known as M8, the eighth object listed in Charles Messier’s famous catalog of bright nebulae and star clusters. Close on the sky but slightly fainter than M8, this complex of nebulae was left out of Messier’s list though. It contains obscuring dust, striking red emission and blue reflection nebulae of star-forming region NGC 6559 at right. Like M8, NGC 6559 is located about 5,000 light-years away along the edge of a large molecular cloud. At that distance, this telescopic frame nearly 3 full moons wide would span about 130 light-years.
Global Moon Party: NASA’s Night Sky Network: Saturday, October 9
Tomorrow’s picture: when stars play guitars
NGC 6559: 礁湖星云东侧的天体
影像提供与版权: Roberto Sartori
说明: 把望远镜指向和礁湖星云紧邻的东侧，就能见到在银河中心人马座方向的这片引人入胜之富星野。礁湖星云又名为M8，因为它是查尔斯·梅西耶著名的亮星云与星团编录的第八号天体。而在M8右侧这大片邻近但较黯淡的复合星云，则是梅西叶星表的遗珠。这片复合星云，其内聚集着不透光的尘埃，以及隶属恒星形成区NGC 6559的醒目泛红发射星云和泛蓝的反射星云。NGC 6559和M8类似，除了距离都在5,000光年左右之外，也都位在同一个大型分子云的边陲地带。以这个距离来换算，这片约3个满月宽的望远镜视野，涵盖的区域约为130光年。
全球月球派对：NASA的夜空网络：10月9日星期六
明日的图片: when stars play guitars
