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  • Ville Puoskari

Sapphire of the autumn sky

Near first magnitude star Deneb lies one of the hidden jewels that only long exposure times reveal. This object is IC 5070, more commonly know in amateur astronomy community as the Pelican Nebula. It is part of a much larger HII complex that includes near-by nebulosities like the North America nebula. The Pelican Nebula is studied intensively because it has particularly active mix evolving gas clouds and rich star formation. The light from young energetic stars is slowly transforming cold gas to hot and causing an ionization front gradually to advance outward. Particularly dense filaments of cold gas are seen to still remain, and among these are found two jets emitted from the Herbig–Haro object 555 that is visible in my image on the right as a small pillar of dust pointing upwards. If you look carefully you can barely see the jets as well on the tip of it.


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