A portion of the 1.7 gigapixel image of the Milky Way put together to create a panorama by Finnish photographer JP MetsavainioJP Metsavainio
The California Nebula, also called NGC 1499, was discovered by EE Barnard in 1884. On the large mosaic image, it can be seen at the bottom left corner.
The nebula is located around 1,000 light years from Earth. Because of its low surface brightness, it is one of the most difficult astronomical objects to observe.
The Bubble Nebula, around 11,000 light years from Earth, can be seen as a tiny pearl-like formation in the middle left. Near the Bubble lies much larger Sharpless 157, which is the bright area at lower left.
The Cave Nebula, which is relatively close at only 2,400 light years from Earth, is located on the upper right area of the photo.
Cygnus is one of the most recognisable constellations in the sky. It contains one of the brightest stars in the night sky called Deneb.
“Constellation Cygnus is an endless source of celestial wonders, both scientifically and aesthetically,” said Metsavanio. “For me, as a visual artist, this area of night sky is very inspiring. There are endless amounts of amazing shapes and structures, I can spend the rest of my life just shooting images from this treasury.”
Within the Cygnus constellation, resides the Tulip Nebula. The object is also located next to the black hole, or microquasar, called Cygnus X-1.
In the bigger mosaic, the Tulip Nebula can be spotted at the centre right.
“My current toolset is very suitable for this kind of objects, since it is kind of heavily undersampled and that's good when I need to capture very dim and large objects,” Metsavanio said in October 2020.
The Elephant's Trunk Nebula is a concentration of interstellar gas and dust within the much larger ionized gas region IC 1396, seen in the image above.
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