Reflection Nebula vdB31 in Auriga | Schulman Telescope

Reflection Nebula vdB31 in Auriga | Schulman Telescope

The dark dust clouds of vdB31, illuminated by and reflecting the light of the bright blue star AB Aurigae. It is an extremely young star just 4 million or so years old, still in the process of settling down after its birth. It has more than twice the mass of the Sun, and is fiercely hot and luminous, visible in binoculars despite its distance of well over 500 light years.

AB Aurigae is so hot it puts out most of its light in the blue part of the spectrum. Moreover, the tiny grains of silicates and carbon tend to let red light pass by them even while blue light tends to be scattered off them—sent in semi-random directions. These factors combine to create the incredibly lovely blue glow to the dust hanging in space around the star. Without it, the wisps and filaments in the dust would be invisible to our eyes.

The 0.81 m (32 in) Schulman Telescope is a Ritchey-Chrétien reflector built by RC Optical Systems and installed in 2010. It is operated by the Mount Lemmon SkyCenter and is Arizona's largest dedicated public observatory. The Schulman Telescope was designed from inception for remote control over the Internet by amateur and professional astrophotographers worldwide. It is currently the world's largest telescope dedicated for this purpose.

Image Credit: Adam Block

Caption Credit: Phil Plait

Image Date: Jan. 1, 2013

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