September 14, 2022

Butterfly Wing Nebula, part of IC 1318 (August 2022)


This portion of the Gamma Cygni Nebula, IC 1318, is half of what is often called the Butterfly Nebula, which does sort look like a butterfly from 4,000 light years away.

The star at the center is HD194789, a blue-white B6 subgiant only 1066 light years away.  The bright star upper right is HD 194558, a K2 subgiant only 658 light years away.  These stars are thousands of light years in front of the nebula.  They give a sense of the depth of a view through the telescope.

The image is 11x1200" with the Atik 460EXC through an Astronomik CLS filter and the 203mm Synta-ONTC Newtonian at f/4.95.

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