Sh2-101 “Tulip Nebula”
May 17, 2020
This image was take in summer 2016 with the GSO Telescope and the ATIK-One CCD. It is a HaLRGB sequence of 18 Ha of 900s + 24 L of 600s and finally 13+13+13 RGBs of 300s. Total exposition time was 11hr 45min.
This Ha image is the HII Region surrounding the Tulip Nebula. It is a mosaic of two images of 12 frame each 1800s long, for a total time of 12 hr. The mosaic has be taken with the FSQ telescope and QHY90A
Sharpless 101 (Sh2-101) is a H II region emission nebula located in the constellation Cygnus. It is sometimes also called the Tulip Nebula because it appears to resemble the outline of a tulip when imaged photographically. It was catalogued by astronomer Stewart Sharpless in his 1959 catalog of nebulae. It lies at a distance of about 6,000 light-years (5.7×1016 km; 3.5×1016 mi) from Earth.
Sh2-101, at least in the field seen from earth, is adjacent to the direction of the galactic X-ray source Cyg X-1, the first such source widely accepted to be a black hole. . Cygnus X-1 position is just outside the right bottom corner of the color image, but it is well visible on the Ha image crop below, as indicated by the yellow arrow.
