Giant Space 'Bubble' Floats in Stunning Skywatcher Photo

[n2doc]

A delicate-looking cosmic bubble shape appears to float inside a distant nebula in this stunning view captured by California-based skywatcher Larry Van Vleet .

The photo shows a giant bubble of gas blown by the nebula NGC 7635, also known as the Bubble nebula. Van Vleet used a RCOS 16 Truss telescope and Apogee U16M to capture the photo from his Sierra Remote Observatories in Shaver Lake,Calif., in August.

The bubble was created by fierce stellar winds and intense radiation from a nearby star, which likely has a mass 10 to 20 times that of the sun. The process blasted out material to form the bubble structure of glowing gas against denser material in a surrounding molecular cloud. The cloud contains the expansion of the Bubble nebula while itself being excited by the hot central star, causing it to glow.

Located 7,100 light-years from Earth in the constellation Cassiopeia, the bubble is about 6 light-years wide and glows pink because of the red, hot gas that surrounds it. Emission nebulas are clouds of high temperature gas. The atoms in the cloud are energized by ultraviolet light from a nearby star and emit radiation as they fall back into lower energy states (in much the same way as a neon light).


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http://www.space.com/13306-giant-space-bubble-nebula-skywatcher-photo.html

[xchrom]

1. recommend

[PETRUS]

2. Staggering. nt

[flakey_foont]

3. amazing!

Thanks for the post!

[Orsino]

4. Funny how it seems to follow you across the galaxy. n/t

[eppur_se_muova]

5. *snarf* nt

[pokerfan]

6. Glinda?

[laconicsax]

7. A lot of money went into that image!

16" RCOS? :wow:

[TheMadMonk]

8. 16 is a baby these days. There are a number of manufacturers...

...shipping 30 inch plus scopes to amateurs.

[laconicsax]

9. Oh, I know. That doesn't make his set up less expensive.

The 16" RCOS with mount, CCD, and software has to be pushing $50k easily before you even get into a observatory dome. That's a lot of money.