                        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.

                               2022 October 19

                      A Galaxy Beyond Stars, Gas, Dust
         Image Credit & Copyright: Howard Trottier; Text: Emily Rice

   Explanation: Do we dare believe our eyes? When we look at images of
   space, we often wonder whether they are "real", and just as often the
   best answer varies. In this case, the scene appears much as our eyes
   would see it, because it was obtained using RGB (Red, Green, Blue)
   filters like the cone cells in our eyes, except collecting light for 19
   hours, not a fraction of a second. The featured image was captured over
   six nights, using a 24-inch diameter telescope in the Sierra Nevada
   Mountains, in California, USA. The bright spiral galaxy at the center
   (NGC 7497) looks like it is being grasped by an eerie tendril of a
   space ghost, and therein lies the trick. The galaxy is actually 59
   million light years away, while the nebulosity is MBM 54, less than one
   thousand light years away, making it one of the nearest cool clouds of
   gas and dust -- galactic cirrus -- within our own Milky Way Galaxy.
   Both are in the constellation of Pegasus, which can be seen high
   overhead from northern latitudes in the autumn.

                       Tomorrow's picture: open space
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       Authors & editors: Robert Nemiroff (MTU) & Jerry Bonnell (UMCP)
            NASA Official: Phillip Newman Specific rights apply.
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