First Light: Pickering’s Triangle

Pickering’s Triangle is named after Professor Edward Charles Pickering, director of the Harvard College Observatory. It should better be called Fleming’s Triangle, because it was discovered by Williamina Fleming as part of her work on evaluating photographic plates at Pickering’s observatory.

It is a part of the Cygnus Loop or Veil Nebula and consists of a fascinating web of gas filaments that emit light in the characteristic Ha and OIII transition wavelengths.

This bi-color image is based on a little over 9 hours of data using Ha and OIII filters. We will definitely get a little more data for this fascinating target.