                        Astronomy Picture of the Day

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

                               2021 October 29

                         Haunting the Cepheus Flare
                     Image Credit & Copyright: Leo Shatz

   Explanation: Spooky shapes seem to haunt this dusty expanse, drifting
   through the night in the royal constellation Cepheus. Of course, the
   shapes are cosmic dust clouds visible in dimly reflected starlight. Far
   from your own neighborhood, they lurk above the plane of the Milky Way
   at the edge of the Cepheus Flare molecular cloud complex some 1,200
   light-years away. Over 2 light-years across and brighter than most of
   the other ghostly apparitions, vdB 141 or Sh2-136 is also known as the
   Ghost Nebula, seen at the right of the starry field of view. Inside the
   nebula are the telltale signs of dense cores collapsing in the early
   stages of star formation. With the eerie hue of dust reflecting bluish
   light from hot young stars of NGC 7023, the Iris Nebula stands out
   against the dark just left of center. In the broad telescopic frame,
   these fertile interstellar dust fields stretch almost seven full moons
   across the sky.

                   Tomorrow's picture: of light and shadow
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       Authors & editors: Robert Nemiroff (MTU) & Jerry Bonnell (UMCP)
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