“Surfing the swan’s inner beauty.”

Messier 17 – or as it’s more famously known, the Omega Nebula (or Swan Nebula, Checkmark Nebula, Horseshoe Nebula, and NGC 6618 ). This beautiful nebula is considered one of the brightest and most massive star-forming regions in our galaxy. Sculpted by stellar winds and radiation, this fantastic colorful portrait of undulating shapes lies within this stellar nursery 5,500 light-years away in the Sagittarius constellation.

What you see is the hot hydrogen gas that is illuminated when its particles are excited by the hottest of the stars that have just formed within the nebula. Also, some of the light is being reflected by the nebula’s own dust. These remain hidden by dark obscuring material, and we know their presence only through the detection of their infrared radiation.

This image was taken from 2 different telescopes back in 2015 and in 2021. Over 75 Hours of exposure between them.

Image Processing and Calibration: Mark Hanson

Data Collection: Hanson, Mazlin, Parker, Forman 2021

Telescope1: 24" Planewave CDK f6.5 and L600 Mount, Camera SBIG 16803 Location: SWOS, El Sauce Chile

 Data Collection: Data: M. Hanson, S. Mazlin, W. Keller, R. Parker 2015

Telescope2: 16" RCOS f11.2 Planewave HD Mount, Camera: FLI 16803, Location: SSRO, Cito Chile

Enjoy, Mark

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