Moravian instruments, Inc., source: https://www.gxccd.com/art?id=516&lang=409, printed: 28.03.2024 11:14:43

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IC2944
 Nebulosity complex IC2944 is a beautiful example of “star nursery”, where new stars are born from condensations of interstellar gas clouds. But young, bright stars are not good siblings for close proto-stars, still awaiting their birth. Intense radiation from newborns stars blows away gas from globules, which gravity is not yet strong enough to keep them together. For gaseous bulges it is a run for life — either they shrink soon enough so the gravity prevails and new star can be born, or their gas globule is torn apart by intense stellar wind.

The IC2944 image below shows all these dramatic events in breathtaking details. Bright young stars, which radiation pushes gas into walls and trunk, dark silhouettes of globules with possible proto-stars in their centers, from which new stars (possibly with planetary systems) can emerge.

This false-color image was captured through Hα, OIII and SII narrow-band filters by G4-16000 camera on the TEC160 refractor in Chile (see the www.cielaustral.com) by Laurent Bourgon, Jean-Claude Canonne, Nicolas Outters, Philippe Bernhard and Didier Chaplain. Total exposure time was 101 hours.

The same IC2944 image as above, but this time in real (red, green and blue) colors. Image needed much shorter exposure time, just little over 5 hours. It shows less details, but on the other side gives a hint how human eye could see colors of the objects above.