The Antares - Rho Ophiuchi Region in Scorpius is one of the most beautiful and colorful areas of the night sky. Hold your mouse cursor over the image to see object identifications.

It contains dark nebulae where lanes of obscuring dust hide background stars, blue reflection nebulae where the dust is illuminated by the reflected light of nearby stars, and red emission nebulae where the hot hydrogen gas itself is glowing and emitting light.

Ced 132 is a rare orange/yellow reflection nebula around Antares, the brightest star below the center of the image This nebula is also cataloged as VdB 107. Antares is a red supergiant star with a radius 1,500 times larger than the Sun, and is located at a distance of 604 light-years.

M4 is a globular cluster located just above and to the left of Antares.

At the top of the image, Rho Ophiuchi is the triple-star surrounded by IC 4604, the large blue reflection nebula. Emission nebula Sh2-9 is at right surrounding Sigma Scorpii.

Other nebulae in the image are IC 4603 and IC 4605, dark nebulae B42 and B44, and the large emission nebula LBN 1103 (GN 16.34.0, RCW 129) around Tau Scorpii.

North is to the left in the above image.

Antares - Rho Ophiuchi Area Object Type: Nebulae Complex Area Size: 7° x 4.75° Constellation: Scorpius Image Field Centered At: RA: 16h 27m 26s Dec: -25° 24' 41"