                APOD: 2017 September 30 - Portrait of NGC 281

                         Astronomy Picture of the Day

    Discover the cosmos! [1] Each day a different image or photograph of our
 fascinating universe is featured, along with a brief explanation written by a
                           professional astronomer.

                              2017 September 30
                                      [2]
                             Portrait of NGC 281
        Image Credit & Copyright [3] : Eric Coles [4]  and Mel Helm [5]

Explanation: Look through the cosmic cloud cataloged as NGC 281 and you might
miss the stars of open cluster IC 1590 [6] . Still, formed within the nebula
[7]  that cluster's young, massive stars ultimately power the pervasive
nebular glow [8] . The eye-catching shapes looming in this portrait of NGC 281
[9]  are sculpted columns and dense dust globules [10] seen in silhouette,
eroded by intense, energetic winds and radiation from the hot cluster stars.
If they survive long enough, the dusty structures could also be sites of
future star formation. Playfully called [11] the Pacman Nebula because of its
overall shape, NGC 281 is about 10,000 light-years away in the constellation
Cassiopeia [12] . This sharp composite image was made through narrow-band [13]
 filters, combining emission from the nebula's hydrogen, sulfur, and oxygen
atoms in green, red, and blue hues. It spans over 80 light-years at the
estimated distance of NGC 281.

              Tomorrow's picture: supersonic green machine [14]

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    Authors & editors: Robert Nemiroff [26] (MTU [27] ) & Jerry Bonnell [28]
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Site notes:
  [1] archivepix.html
  [2] image/1709/N281ColesHelm.jpg
  [3] lib/about_apod.html#srapply
  [4] http://www.astrobin.com/users/coles44/
  [5] http://www.pbase.com/melhelm
  [6] http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/1997AJ....113.2116G
  [7] http://chandra.harvard.edu/photo/2007/ngc281/
  [8] http://www.noao.edu/image_gallery/ emission_nebulae.html
  [9] http://www.astrobin.com/311789/B/?nc=user
  [10] http://heritage.stsci.edu/2006/13/index.html
  [11] http://www.google.com/pacman/
  [12] http://www.hawastsoc.org/deepsky/cas/
  [13] ap071102.html
  [14] ap171001.html
  [15] ap170929.html
  [16] archivepix.html
  [17] lib/apsubmit2015.html
  [18] lib/aptree.html
  [19] http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/cgi-bin/apod/apod_search
  [20] calendar/allyears.html
  [21] /apod.rss
  [22] lib/edlinks.html
  [23] lib/about_apod.html
  [24] http://asterisk.apod.com/discuss_apod.php?date=170930
  [25] ap171001.html
  [26] http://www.phy.mtu.edu/faculty/Nemiroff.html
  [27] http://www.phy.mtu.edu/
  [28] http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/htmltest/jbonnell/www/bonnell.html
  [29] http://www.astro.umd.edu/
  [30] lib/about_apod.html#srapply
  [31] http://www.nasa.gov/about/highlights/HP_Privacy.html
  [32] http://astrophysics.gsfc.nasa.gov/
  [33] http://www.nasa.gov/
  [34] http://www.nasa.gov/centers/goddard/
  [35] http://www.mtu.edu/
