Another H II region in the LMC - NGC 1955, NGC 1968 and NGC 1974
- Details
The Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC) contains a number of extended H II regions. It is in these H II regions that star development recently took place and often still takes place; the short-lived hot blue stars created in these regions emit copious amounts of ultraviolet light that ionize the surrounding gas making it visible as an emission nebula.
In this picture such an H II region is visible with several open star clusters embedded in it. The region in the center of this picture has the designation NGC 1955. To the left of it is an open cluster with the designation NGC 1968 and still further to the left the region with the designation NGC 1974.
The whole region is known as N 51.
I scheduled 30 missions through the Slooh Australia One telescope for this picture with a total exposure time of 55 minutes. The combination of these images followed by extensive processing was done in PixInsight.
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Elephant Trunk Nebula - IC 1396A and VdB 142
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The Elephant Trunk nebula is a dark 'globule' inside IC 1396A which itself is part of the very large nebulosity IC 1396. Why it is called the Elephant trunk nebula is unclear to me because I don't recognize an elephant trunk in the dark nebulosity.
Strangely enough the Slooh telescope Canary Two is not pointed to VdB 142 when choosing that object. By choosing Van den Berg 142 from the Slooh 1000 catalog the telescope is pointed correctly and the dark nebulosity shows clearly up in the picture.
VdB 142 is in fact a very small emission nebula (almost in the center of the image) inside the dark nebulosity. It is hardly visible in the picture because it is very dim. It is a dim white haze around and to the right of the bright white star in the center of the black nebulosity.
This image is the result of 21 missions to Van den Bergh 142 with a total exposure of about 39 minutes through the Slooh Canary Two UWF (refractor) telescope. Processing is done in PixInsight.
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Eta Carinae nebula - NGC 3372
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The Eta Carinae Nebula (NGC 3372) is a large, complex area of bright and dark nebulosity in the constellation Carina. The nebula is approximately 8,500 light-years from Earth.
The nebula is one of the largest diffuse nebulae in our skies. Although it is four times as large as and even brighter than the famous Orion Nebula, the Carina Nebula is much less well known due to its location in the southern sky.
This nebula has a special importance to me because we named our astronomy club after Eta Carinae; also, when I purchased my large Obsession dobsonian (18" mirror), the designer of this telescope, Dave Kriege, came to my island, Curaçao, to look at this nebula through the telescope that I had purchased from him. From his home location in the US this nebula is not visible.
This picture is the result of 35 missions through the Slooh Chili Two telescope. The exposure is almost 65 minutes in total.
Processing is done in PixInsight.
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IC 1318 - Butterfly nebula
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In the center of the Swan (constellation Cygnis) a large nebulosity can be found around the very bright star Gamma Cygni; part of this nebulosity is IC 1318; this nebula is also known as the Butterfly nebula because two 'wings' can be seen attached to the dark 'body' of the butterfly. The very bright Gamma Cygni is in this image just outside the right boundary..
Because of the large size of this nebulosity I have chosen for the refractor telescope Canary Two UltraWide. This is the telescope with the largest field of view among all the Slooh telescopes and also the only refractor.
In total 24 missions were scheduled through this telecope. Each mission consists of 1 L-exposure of 50 seconds and 20 second exposures for each of the R, G and B channels. In total 44 minutes exposure. The resulting images are processed in PixInsight.
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IC 405 - Flaming star nebula
- Details
IC 405, also known as the Flaming Star nebula, not to be confused with the Flame nebula in Orion, is located in the constellation Auriga. It is an emission and reflection nebula around the bright star AE Aurigae. That star is so hot that it is blueish; its intense radiation causes the surrounding nebula to emit the red H II radiation, the "flame". The reflection of the bluish star is seen as the blue "smoke" of the flame.
It is a bright nebula so a perfect target for smaller telescopes. I have chosen to use the refractor telescope Canary Two UWF. I scheduled 22 missions with a total exposure of about 40 minutes.
The processing was done in PixInsight.
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