Cygnus Smoke Ring?

[melsky]

I've been having another look at my widefield HA image of Cygnus (http://stargazerslou...50mm-widefield/)

I might be imagining (or bad imaging) it but is there large dark smoke ring stetching from the California Nebula to the Sadr Nebula?

Can anyone else see this?

Mel

[MidnightSun]

There does appear to be something there...

[Martin-Devon]

yep, I can see this also - that's one heck of a good image as well.....

[Earl]

im not sold myself as the green when it disappears leaves an illusion image which might not be there.

[Psychobilly]

There are plenty of other widefield images out there which seem to show it ...

http://www.flickr.co...roc/1239777931/

Here's one of my 1000D images form a few years ago...

Peter

[jflowers]

Certainly looks like something is there, though I see a slightly different path to the one marked.

Nice pics anyway Melsky and Psychobilly.

[Gina]

Nice image

[AndyUK]

As Peter noted, I think there's quite a few widefield images that show a lot of "dark" avenues around Cygnus - Mine isn't nearly as well framed as either Mel's or Peter's, but it shows something similar:

[Quatermass]

Yes I can see it but not sure it is a complete ring so to speak. Great image all the same.

[JamesF]

I'm inclined to think it's the brain wanting to make a pattern out of it by joining it up rather than a single continuous band.

James

[Psychobilly]

I'm inclined to think it's the brain wanting to make a pattern out of it by joining it up rather than a single continuous band.

James

I guess the brain making patterns can equally be applied to many other dso's as well..

Peter...

[laser_jock99]

I'm not sure it's a single structure, though it would be a great discovery if you could prove it was?

It's not obvious on my image which was specially processed to show the dark dust lanes. Maybe it's more apparent in Ha?

[AndyUK]

(And I thought I'd got a lot of stars in my version...!)

[steppenwolf]

I can certainly trace at least some of it on my own image which was processed for nebulosity. I'd love to think that this is a single 'something' but suspect that it is the eye finding patterns. How the ancients came away with some of their constellation name choices based on patterns is quite beyond me though!

If this is a new discovery then I'd be thrilled for you!

[Gina]

I'm not sure it's a single structure, though it would be a great discovery if you could prove it was?

It's not obvious on my image which was specially processed to show the dark dust lanes. Maybe it's more apparent in Ha?

I can see an oval shape with slightly pointed right-hand end in there on my 22" monitor with the image nearly filling the screen. I can also see a bubble, with slightly flattened sides, inside the oval. That is a fantastic image

[Tom OD]

Nice pic, I'll give you 2/3rds of a complete ring but not a full one. A dark nebula ring would be pretty cool to see though;

T.

[squeaky]

I cropped the top left corner to make this easier to pick out.

A more continuous, but smaller circle - or even a sphere with moderate opacity? The tip of the arrow is just touching the outer edge of the ring/sphere...

[Anweniel]

I'm with the 'illusion' crowd, its quite easy to make different patterns that can sometimes appear to make generic shapes or patterns, I see the ring that you point out and although you could possibly be right - the difference in the shade of light and the parts that seem a little more tenuously linked lead to me think its less likely.

Oh but fantastic image though love it

As for

laser_jock99 .....

oh my how many stars!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! magnificent shows how insignificant we really are!

[laser_jock99]

I can see an oval shape with slightly pointed right-hand end in there on my 22" monitor with the image nearly filling the screen. I can also see a bubble, with slightly flattened sides, inside the oval. That is a fantastic image

If you squint at these dust ridden images even more structure seems to pop out. I'd like to try the area in pure Ha and see if I could get an image as good as Melsky's though.

[GlassWalker]

Here's a wider view of the region in Ha I took last year. My first test when I got the Ha filter Not sure what I see though.

[squeaky]

Looks like there's a square there. Bottom left corner of the square being smack in the middle of the image.

It's a "Canals of Mars" thing though, innit?

[melsky]

Thanks for all you comments

I'm not entirely convinced myself which is why I asked the question, I agree the human brain is brilliant at joining the dots up.

Below is a link to the full size non flashing image (4000px x 2605px) which I've had as my desktop background for the last

few weeks which caused me to notice "the smoke ring" feel free to check it out.

Mel

link

http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7075/7273255046_38ecd15b36_o.jpg

[squeaky]

The eye certainly gets led around there - but, for example the darker section from bottom left corner to bottom right corner begins to look like a single object, and then the various other bits begin to separate (if you see what I mean?).

It would be a huge and very strange artefact if it was indeed a single entity. But then, the sky is full of strange things

[laser_jock99]

Here's a wider view of the region in Ha I took last year. My first test when I got the Ha filter Not sure what I see though.

If you squint at this photo the 'smoke ring' looks bigger (more round) than Melsky's green plot. If this is a single object then it's huge. Can't find anything on the web though?

[Anweniel]

If you take a line through approx 330 degrees from left to right there is almost symmetry with the clouds of dust and to this apparent smoke ring which lends itself to single point source origin such as a large stellar explosion but again I must confess I am not overly convinced its a singularity. Pure speculation, fascinating to question it though