NGC 2149
Situated 1300 light years away in Monoceros, NGC 2149 is a reflection nebula.
The nebula appears to be a giant expanding ring between the high longitude end of the Orion A (molecular) Cloud and the Mon R2 Cloud. In most projections, these clouds appear to be unconnected. However, in a 2008 “Astronomy and Astrophysics” B. A. Wilson (University of Bristol), Thomas M. Dame (Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics), and colleagues say that their three-dimensional display (with velocity as the third dimension) indicates that the clouds in this region may be connected to form a ring. If NGC 2149’s distance is 1300 light-years, they note, the diameter of the ring is about 260 light-years, which corresponds to the expansion age of about 9 million years and may be the result of a supernova.”
Imaged in LRGB at Observatorio El Sauce, Obstech, Chile on our RiDK 400
Integration time: 32 hours
Image Processing: Mike Selby