SUNSET: 
0
Photographer:
Rod Pommier
Location of Photo:
Pommier Observatory, Portland, OR, USA
Date/Time of photo:
2018-12-03 through 2019-11-29
Equipment:
Celestron Compustar C14 with Starizona LF reducer/corrector (f/7.5), SBIG STL 11000M CCD with Baader Planetarium LRGB filters, SBIG AO-L adaptive optics at 8 Hz
Description:
NGC is a reflection nebula lying 957 light-years from Earth in Perseus. It is on the western end of the Perseus molecular cloud and is an active star forming region, rich in dark nebulae. Many stages of star formation are visible in this image. To upper right of center is a pair of V-shaped bipolar outflows emitted perpendicular to the accretion disk of a photo-star forming within the dark nebula. Numerous bright red Herbig-Haro objects scattered across the image reveal the locations of other protostars whose bipolar outflows are colliding with surrounding dust and gas, causing them to glow. As newborn blue supergiant stars emerge from the dark nebulae, the surrounding residual dust scatters the shorter blue wavelengths of light, generating a blue reflection nebula. This is analogous to the air in Earth's atmosphere scattering short wavelengths of light, causing the sky to appear blue. The dark nebula near center is Lynd's Dark Nebula 1450. The dark nebula at upper right is Barnard 205.
