Shaped like an hourglass roughly 2,000 light years from Earth, nebula Sh2-106 shines in this stunning photo.
Veteran astrophotographer Bill Snyder captured this image on Oct. 13, 2012 from Heavens Mirror Observatory in California's Sierra Nevada Mountains. He used a Planewave 17” telescope equipped with an Apogee U16 camera, as well as a Paramount ME mount and Astrodon LRGB filters to view the SH2-106 nebula. The total exposure time to capture this image was more than nine hours.
The Hourglass Nebula lies in the constellation Cygnus, the Swan. This compact star-forming region gets its signature shape from high-speed winds ejecting from the S106 IR star in the center.
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