M17: The Swan Nebula

Click on image for larger version.

This object is often called the Omega Neblula, rarely the Horseshoe Nebula. You can see the Swan if you remember that it is swimming upside-down (sometimes I call it the Loch Ness Monster Nebula). The body of the Swan is about twelve lightyears long, but that is only the brightest portion. There are fainter, irregular clumps of gas that stretch for forty lightyears or more.

The Swan is about 5700 lightyears away, in Sagittarius.

Equipment

Meade 16in LX200 telescope operating at f/6.3
SBIG ST8E CCD camera with color filter wheel

R R G B color production was used to create this image.

Luminance = 40 minutes binned 1x1
 Red = 10 minutes binned 3x3
 Green = 10 minutes binned 3x3
 Blue = 20 minutes binned 3x3
  • One iteration of L-R deconvolution (sharpening) algorithm using CCDsharp was applied to the luminance image.

    • Minimum credit line: Barbara Westhafer and Marge Maston/Adam Block/NOAO/AURA/NSF

    RETURN to the Diffuse Nebulae page.

    BACK to main Best of AOP page.

    Would you like to take images like this? Click here.

    [NOAO logo] Return to NOAO Home Page

    Updated: 4/28/2001