A starry superbubble

Eso_potw2113a_1024

eso_potw2113a March 29th, 2021

Credit: ESO

This gently glowing area of sky is actually a hot bubble of hydrogen gas — named Sh 2-305 — that has been bombarded by intense radiation from nearby stars. Such gas clouds are known as emission nebulae, or HII regions (pronounced “H-two”). The radiation in question is in the ultraviolet part of the spectrum and is thought to emanate from at least two O-type stars, and likely several others. This stellar class is the brightest and hottest that we know of — such stars can be up to 90 times as massive as the Sun, and an incredible one million times as bright. Together with five neighbouring bubbles, Sh 2-305 belongs to a giant complex of dense clouds of dust and gas and, on a larger scale, an enormous ring called the GS234-02 star-forming supershell (located in the Perseus arm of the Milky Way, in the constellation of Puppis).  This image was obtained under the ESO Cosmic Gems programme, an outreach initiative to produce images of interesting, intriguing or visually attractive objects using ESO telescopes, for the purposes of education and public outreach. The programme makes use of telescope time that cannot be used for science observations. All data collected may also be suitable for scientific purposes, and are made available to astronomers through ESO’s science archive.

Provider: European Southern Observatory

Image Source: https://www.eso.org/public/images/potw2113a/

Curator: European Southern Observatory, Garching bei München, None, Germany

Image Use Policy: Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License

Image Details

Image Type
Observation
Object Name
Sh 2-305
Subject - Milky Way
Nebula > Appearance > Emission > H II Region
Eso_potw2113a_128
 

Position Details

Position (ICRS)
RA = 7h 30m 4.0s
DEC = -18° 32’ 11.7”
Orientation
North is up
Field of View
7.3 x 7.4 arcminutes
Constellation
Puppis

Color Mapping

  Telescope Spectral Band Wavelength
Red VLT (FORS2) Optical (H-alpha) 660.0 nm
Orange VLT (FORS2) Optical (R) 655.0 nm
Green VLT (FORS2) Optical (V) 557.0 nm
Blue VLT (FORS2) Optical (B) 440.0 nm
Spectrum_base
Red
Orange
Green
Blue
Eso_potw2113a_1280
×
ID
potw2113a
Subject Category
B.4.2.1.1  
Subject Name
Sh 2-305
Credits
ESO
Release Date
2021-03-29T06:00:00
Lightyears
Redshift
Reference Url
https://www.eso.org/public/images/potw2113a/
Type
Observation
Image Quality
Distance Notes
Facility
Very Large Telescope, Very Large Telescope, Very Large Telescope, Very Large Telescope
Instrument
FORS2, FORS2, FORS2, FORS2
Color Assignment
Red, Orange, Green, Blue
Band
Optical, Optical, Optical, Optical
Bandpass
H-alpha, R, V, B
Central Wavelength
660, 655, 557, 440
Start Time
Integration Time
Dataset ID
None, None, None, None
Notes
Coordinate Frame
ICRS
Equinox
J2000
Reference Value
112.516471788, -18.5365785192
Reference Dimension
1744.0, 1760.0
Reference Pixel
872.0, 880.0
Scale
-7.00006897331e-05, 7.00006897331e-05
Rotation
-0
Coordinate System Projection:
TAN
Quality
Full
FITS Header
Notes
Creator (Curator)
European Southern Observatory
URL
https://www.eso.org
Name
Email
Telephone
Address
Karl-Schwarzschild-Strasse 2
City
Garching bei München
State/Province
None
Postal Code
D-85748
Country
Germany
Rights
Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License
Publisher
European Southern Observatory
Publisher ID
eso
Resource ID
potw2113a
Metadata Date
2019-12-02T10:35:52+01:00
Metadata Version
1.1
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Detailed color mapping information coming soon...

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There is no distance meta data in this image.

 

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