Star Cluster NGC 6520 & Nebula Barnard 86 in Sagittarius | Victor Blanco Telescope

Star Cluster NGC 6520 & Nebula Barnard 86 in Sagittarius | Victor Blanco Telescope

An image of the open star cluster NGC 6520 and nearby dust cloud Barnard 86 in the constellation Sagittarius, one of the densest parts of our Galaxy. This cosmic pair is set against millions of glowing stars from the brightest part of the Milky Way—a region so full of stars that barely any dark sky is seen across the picture. The bright young stars of this star cluster probably formed out of gas related to the nearby dust cloud. They stand out in contrast to the background of older stars in the bulge of our Galaxy.

Distance: 6,000 light years

This image was taken by the National Science Foundation's Victor Blanco 4-m telescope at the Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory (CTIO) in Chile with B (blue), V (green) , I (orange) and H-alpha (red) filters. 

Learn about the Víctor M. Blanco Telescope:
https://noirlab.edu/science/programs/ctio/telescopes/victor-blanco-4m-telescope

Image Credit: T. A. Rector/University of Alaska Anchorage and NOIRLab/NSF/AURA
Release Date: April 6, 2009

#NASA #Astronomy #Space #Science #Stars #StarClusters #NGC6520 #Nebulae #StarFormation #DarkClouds #Barnard86 #SagittariusConstellation #MilkyWayGalaxy #Cosmos #Universe #VictorBlancoTelescope #CTIO #CerroTololo #Chile #NOIRLab #NSF #AURA #SouthAmerica #Europe #STEM #Education