The Jumping Spider – Sh2-36

The general impression of Sh2-36 is that it is a rather bland, uninteresting target. I found it to be anything but. Nevertheless, few astrophotographers pursue it. But I had to go after it because I swore by the old gods and the new that I would someday capture all 313 Sharpless objects. As of this writing, I have 211 of them (including this one).

There’s also a dearth of scientific literature on this object as far as I can tell. It’s also catalogued as LBN 45, so at least a few scientists have taken notice of it. Unlike almost all the Sharpless objects, light from ionized gasses does not dominate the field. This image is essentially true color with just a touch of red hydrogen emission added to it.

According to one source (the only authoritative source I could find), the main body of the nebula is 360 light years away from Earth in the Serpens constellation.

One thing I know simply from processing this image is that it is speckled with dozens of tiny (from our point of view) galaxies hundreds of millions of light years away. Many of what appear to be stars are actually galaxies. Zoom in and check it out.

When this image was taking shape, my sense of pareidolia came up blank. But my wife Christi recognized it as a jumping spider. I can’t argue with that: