The Tulip Nebula, or Sharpless 101 (Sh2-101) or the Cygnus Star Cloud is a H II region[1] emission nebula located in the constellation Cygnus. It is so named 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. The Tulip nebula, at least in the field seen from earth, is in close proximity to microquasar Cygnus X-1, site of one of the first suspected black holes. Cygnus X-1 is the brighter of the two stars (lower star) in close vertical proximity just to the right of the Tulip nebula in the image presented here.[2] This was taken over three nights with over 12 hours of exposure time

GordonHaynes just now Via Flipboard