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> Nebula IC 2948 and IC 2944 in Centaurus
Nebula IC 2948 and IC 2944 in Centaurus
author: Tom Davis/Novapix
reference: a-nec29-48004
Image Size 300 DPI: 45 * 45 cm
Between the Southern Cross and the rich Carina region, on the southern border of Centaurus, is a large, almost featureless emission nebula, IC 2948, with a sprinkling of bright stars, Collinder 249. It is against this uniform, backdrop that we see a brighter region (IC 2944) which hosts small group of dark clouds of the kind known as 'Bok globules'. They are named for the Dutch-American astronomer who first drew attention to them as the possible sites of star formation. There are young stars scattered through the nebula and these stars are responsible for its existence. The stars only 10 million years old and the hydrogen they illuminate seems to be unusually thinly spread and very uniform, so the nebula is both faint and extensive. It is also quite distant, about 6000 light years and is only two degrees from the Galactic plane, so there are many foreground stars. This image is in the classic "Hubble palette" where SII is assigned to red, H-alpha to green, and OIII to blue. RGB frames were taken for star colors.
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