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(Image credit: International Gemini Observatory/ NOIRLab/ NSF/ AURA)
Quick truths
What it is: Emission nebula NGC 6820 and open star cluster NGC 6823
Where it is: 6,000 light-years away in the constellation Vulpecula
When it was shared: Nov. 19, 2025
This incredible picture of an emission nebula– a cloud of gas and dust illuminated by close-by stars– and a neighboring star cluster has actually been released by the Gemini Observatory to mark its 25th anniversary.The image, which is readily available as a zoomable variation online, catches the hot, huge stars in NGC 6823– revealed as specks of blue-white light– lighting up the veil of red gas that makes up NGC 6820. The pillars in the image are gas and dust shaped by the stars’ extreme radiation.
NGC 6820 and NGC 6823 depend on the middle of the Summertime Trianglethe well-known asterism developed by the brilliant stars Deneb, Vega and Altair. They’re noticeable low in the west right away after dark, as seen from the Northern Hemisphere.
In Hawaii– home to the Gemini North telescope, which started operations in June 1999– the Summer Triangle is called Mānaiakalani, the Great Fishhook of Maui. As part of the image’s release, it’s been called Ua ‘Ōhi’a Lani, which indicates the Heavenly ‘Ōhi’a Rains, by 4 regional high school trainees taking part in the University of Hawaii’s Project Hōkūlani summer season internship.
The image was taken utilizing the Gemini North telescope on the top of Maunakea, a guard volcano on Hawaii that hosts 13 big telescope observatories. The International Gemini Observatory makes up twin 8-meter telescopes, with the other– Gemini South– situated on Cerro Pachón in the Chilean Andes. It attained very first light in November 2000. Together, the 2 scopes provide astronomers access to almost the whole night sky.
“This image is crimson and red like lava because of the abundance of hydrogen gas present in the nebula,” Hope Arthur, among the Gemini interns, stated in a declarationThe name originates from a story about Pele, the goddess of volcanoes and fire in Hawaiian religious beliefs and the developer of the Hawaiian Islands.
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“One of Pele’s most well-known stories is that of ‘Ōhi’a and Lehua. Their story is about regrowth after tragedy and the act of new beginnings, which we felt was evocative of the cycle of stellar life, death, and rebirth,” Arthur stated.
“The baby blue stars in the image reminded us of rain and how, in the story of ‘Ōhi’a and Lehua, when you pick the lehua blossoms, it rains,” included Iolani Sanches, an intern at the University of Hawaii at Mānoa.
For more superb area images, have a look at our Area Photo of the Week archives
Jamie Carter is a self-employed reporter and routine Live Science factor based in Cardiff, U.K. He is the author of A Stargazing Program For Beginners and lectures on astronomy and the natural world. Jamie routinely composes for Space.com, TechRadar.com, Forbes Science, BBC Wildlife publication and Scientific American, and lots of others. He modifies WhenIsTheNextEclipse.com.
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