Astr111 Photography Projects, Spring 2007

NGC 2245 Nebula, Nathaniel Shaver

Reflection nebulas are clouds of dust reflecting the light of a nearby star or stars. These stars have to be cool enough to not actually ignite the dust, but still light it up. Because much of the light coming from the nebula is a reflection from the star, the light emissions coming from both are very similar.

This picture captures a faint reflection of the NGC 2245 nebula that is to the right of a nearby star. The nebula is quite small attaining a linear size of only 4.7 E 14 meters and is at a distance of 2608 light years. It tends to have a bluish shade of color because blue wavelengths are more easily scattered than red. For the same reason we see our sky as blue. Thus at sunset the sky is red because the red wavelengths of light are coming directly through the horizon and the scattered blue wavelengths are above us making the higher parts of the sky blue. The nebula is fan shaped and fills a small part of the constellation Monoceros, that has many other nebulae and star clusters.

References:
Lightner, G. Samuel . "Reflection Nebulae." <http://fusedweb.pppl.gov/CPEP/Chart_Pages/5.Plasmas/Nebula/Reflection.html>.

George Normandin. "Reflection Nebula NGC 2245." Kopernik. <http://www.kopernik.org/images/archive/n2245.htm>.

Wagner, Mark. "Cold bones and warm friends at Dino!" <http://observers.org/tac.mailing.list/2001/dec/0293.html>.

Dahm, S.E. and Theodore Simon. "The T Tauri Star Population of the Young CLuster NGC 2264." The Astronomical Journal, 129:829-855. Feb. 2005. <http://www.journals.uchicago.edu/AJ/journal/issues/v129n2/204294/204294.html>.