'This is not a pipe': Curious dark nebula seen as never before
Wednesday, August 15, 2012 - 06:30
in Astronomy & Space
(Phys.org) -- Just as René Magritte wrote This is not a pipe on his famous painting, this is also not a pipe. It is however a picture of part of a vast dark cloud of interstellar dust called the Pipe Nebula. This new and very detailed image of what is also known as Barnard 59 was captured by the Wide Field Imager on the MPG/ESO 2.2-metre telescope at ESOs La Silla Observatory. By coincidence this image is appearing on the 45th anniversary of the painters death.