Running Chicken Nebula (IC 2944)
A glowing cloud in Centaurus around the young cluster IC 2944, about 7,700 light-years away. The bright star Lambda Centauri in front of it is no part of it: Gaia puts that star about 20 times closer.
Nebula and star cluster in Centaurus.
Can you see it from Guyana?
From Georgetown (6.8° N) it climbs to 20° above the southern horizon at its highest; from Lethem (3.4° N), to 23° above the southern horizon. It is highest at midnight on the night of 14 Mar, in the middle of its season. The page works out tonight's rise, highest point and set for both towns in Guyana time (UTC-4), and where the Moon is.
What you'll see
- Your eyes: Not visible to the eye. It lies 5.7° west of Acrux.
- 10x50 binoculars: A misty patch around Lambda Centauri, low in the south.
- A small telescope (80 to 100 mm): A faint glow around a loose group of stars; a UHC filter helps. Low in the south from Guyana.
- A camera: Spans about 40% of an APS-C frame at 400 mm (field 3.4° × 2.2°); needs a tracking mount. An H-alpha-sensitive (modified) camera brings out its red glow.
How big, how bright, how far
- Size on the sky: 80′, 2.6 Moons across (the Moon is about 31′ wide).
- Distance: 7,700 light-years. The light reaching your eye left it about 7,700 years ago.
- True size: 180 light-years across its catalogued outline; light crosses it in 180 years.
What it is made of
- Type
- Emission nebula with a young cluster
- Mass
- About 310 times the Sun's mass, in the stars of its cluster IC 2944
- Age
- About 3.9 million years (range 2.7 million years to 4.9 million years), the age of IC 2944
- Notable
- Lambda Centauri, the bright star it is named after, is a foreground star: Gaia EDR3 puts it at about 395 light-years, the cluster at about 7,700.
What is in it, not measured:
- Ionised hydrogen: glows red where hot stars light it
- Helium and heavier gases: with traces of oxygen, nitrogen and sulphur
- Dust: in dark lanes
- Young hot stars: that light it
How we know: Distance from Gaia parallaxes of the stars of IC 2944, the cluster inside it: Hunt & Reffert 2024, A&A 686, A42 (Gaia DR3 cluster catalogue, VizieR J/A+A/686/A42), retrieved 2026-10-21: IC 2944 2,363 pc; statistical 7,641-7,773 ly (16th-84th percentile); Gaia DR3 parallax zero-point systematics (about 0.02 mas) add about 5%. True size: the apparent size times the distance (apparent size: Rodgers, Campbell & Whiteoak 1960, MNRAS 121, 103 (VizieR VII/216), RCW 62). Mass: Hunt & Reffert 2024, A&A 686, A42 (Gaia DR3 cluster catalogue, VizieR J/A+A/686/A42), retrieved 2026-10-21, IC 2944: total 308 ± 57 Suns.
More deep-sky objects: NGC 3603 (Nebula and Cluster) · Wishing Well Cluster (NGC 3532) · Southern Pleiades (IC 2602) · NGC 3324 (Nebula and Cluster) · Jewel Box Cluster (NGC 4755) · NGC 3114 (Open Cluster)