New astrophoto posted.
@parag That is a stunning image. 30 light years across. As I look at images like yours and attempt to contextualize what I'm seeing, I like to relate it to other objects in our night sky. So, Vega is relatively close at 25 light years. Interesting to imagine that distance in the context of your image. I can imagine our sun on one side and Vega on the other.
Same goes for the 3 dimensional aspects. When I look at photos like yours of the Pelican Nebula, I try to imagine (or remember) that many of those stars are not in the nebula but are between our solar system and the nebula. And to further consider that even at 1,800 light years, that nebula is relatively close given the diameter of our galaxy.
@Denny Thanks, Denny! Yeah these astronomical distances just boggle the mind. With the Milky Way diameter at about 100K light years, makes this nebula really close by. Also, it is hard to imagine that we can only see a small sliver of the Milky Way in the night sky. Most of it is occluded by the dark dust.
@parag Yeah, exactly! I look forward over the next few years seeing comparison images of Hubble photos to those taken by JWST in the infrared.
The distances, views and number of stars does indeed boggle the mind. And to add to that, how little matter there actually is in the vastness of those distances. It's basically all just empty space (or at least that's the way I understand it). I always laugh when watching science fiction like Star Trek because they're warping through space and it seems so full of stars zipping by. I guess the reality of just empty black space wouldn't work very well or be very exciting for the viewer. 🤓🤣