Rho Ophiuchi Wide Field
From NASA’s Astronomy Picture of the Day
The clouds surrounding
the star system Rho Ophiuchi compose one of the closest star forming regions. Rho Ophiuchi itself is
a binary star system visible
in the light-colored region on the image right.
The star system, located
only 400 light
years away, is distinguished by its colorful surroundings, which
include a red emission
nebula and numerous light and dark brown dust lanes.
Near the upper right of
the Rho Ophiuchi molecular
cloud system is the yellow star Antares, while a distant but
coincidently-superposed globular cluster of
stars, M4, is
visible between Antares and the red emission nebula.
Near the image bottom
lies IC 4592, the Blue
Horsehead nebula. The blue glow that surrounds the Blue Horsehead's eye --
and other stars around the image -- is a reflection nebula composed of fine
dust.
On the image left
is a geometrically angled reflection nebula cataloged as Sharpless
1. Here, the bright star near the dust vortex creates the light of
surrounding reflection
nebula.
Although most of these features are
visible through a small telescope pointed toward the constellations of Ophiuchus, Scorpius,
and Sagittarius,
the only way to see the intricate details of the dust swirls, as featured
above, is to use a long
exposure camera.
