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Riding low on the horizon
on mid June evenings, the "Table of Scorpius" region
offers a brilliant mix of galactic open clusters, bright Milkyway
star fields, and both emission and reflection nebulosities. Skimming
the tree tops in the lowest ramparts of the scorpion we find
this splendid field, dominated in the center by the rich open
cluster NGC6231, a brilliant 2.6 magnitude beacon consisting
of 93 stars over a span of nearly 15 arcminutes.
Just below the
cluster, Zeta 1 and Zeta 2 Scorpii form a stunning pair, both
nearly 5th magnitude stars with a superlative color contrast,
Zeta 2 being a very deep orange K4 supergiant, and Zeta 1 a blue
B1 star.
The huge splashy
open cluster above center is Cr 318 (Trumpler 24), and is a huge
degree in size, with an integrated magnitude of 8.5.
The star of this
image however is IC4628, the red emission nebulosity near the
top. Also known as Gum 56, this object has been studied extensively
in infrared wavelengths and has abundant dark nebulosity within.
Nearly a degree across, it is truly a large object but a low
surface brightness nebula not easily seen in the eyepiece of
a telescope.
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