This rich area of stars, nebulae and star clusters is called the Table of Scorpius region. Hold your mouse cursor over the image to see object identifications.

It lies just north of the double star Zeta Scorpii, visible at the top right in the image, in the constellation of Scorpius. A third star, 5.8 magnitude HD 152293 forms a triangle with Zeta.

Zeta is not a true double star however. The two stars, Zeta 1 and Zeta 2, just happen to lie along the same line of sight. Zeta 1 is magnitude 4.66 B-type hypergiant star that is one of the most luminous stars in the Milky Way Galaxy. It is located 2,600 light-years away. Zeta 2 is a magnitude 3.6 K-type red giant that is only 155 light-years from Earth.

NGC 6231 is a beautiful open cluster with 120 hot young blue stars to the left of Zeta. It has been called the Northern Jewel Box and the False Comet Cluster. It has an apparent size of 15 arcminutes and shines at magnitude 2.6. It is located 5,900 light-years away and is estimated to be 3.2 million years old. It is part of the Scorpius OB1 association. NGC 6231 was discovered by Giovanni Batista Hodierna in 1654.

IC 4628, the Prawn Nebula, is the large emission nebula in the image. It lies 6,000 light-years away and is 90 arcminutes across.

In the center of the image are two loose open clusters, Collinder 316 and Trumpler 24.

NGC 6242 is the other small open cluster at bottom left. It shines at magnitude 6.0 and subtends an apparent size of 9 arcminutes and is located 3,900 light-years away. It was discovered by Nicolas-Louis de Lacaille in 1751.

North is to the left in the above image.

Table of Scorpius Area Object Type: Wide-Field Area Area Size: 3.24° x 2.16° Constellation: Scorpius Image Field Centered At: RA: 16h 55m 51s Dec: -40° 47' 08"