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NGC 3576, 3579, 3581, 3582, 3584 and 3586 - Statue of Liberty nebula
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NGC 3576 is a HII Ionized region in the Carina constellation. This nebula is a minor nebula in the Sagittarius arm of the Galaxy a few thousand light years from the Eta Carinae nebula. When John Herschel discovered this nebula in 1834 he could only see several bright nebulous patches and eventually this nebula received six separate classification numbers, NGC 3576, 3579, 3581, 3582, 3584 and 3586. These days astronomers usually call the entire nebula NGC 3576.
It got the nickname Statue of Liberty nebula because in images made with narrowband filters there is clearly a form visible resembling the statue of liberty. The dark nebula above the middle is the body of the statue but the arm with the torch is not visible in this RGB-image.
I scheduled 25 missions through the Slooh Chili two telescope with a total exposure time of 46 minutes. The resulting Fits-files were combined and processed in PixInsight.
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NGC 346 in the Small Magellanic Cloud
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This picture shows the young open star cluster NGC 346 in the neighboring Small Magellanic Cloud galaxy. The cluster is embedded in the brightest H II region in that galaxy, designated N66. The youngest stars in this open cluster are considered to be just 2 million years old. The intense radiation of these young stars ionize the gas in this H II region resulting in the nice emission nebula visible around the star cluster.
NGC 346 is located in the constellation Tucana (the Toucan) and spans approximately 200 light-years. The distance of the Small Magellanic Cloud galaxy is about 210,000 light years from earth.
In the lower right corner of this image another compact open cluster can be seen. This cluster has the designation NGC 330.
I scheduled 55 missions through the 0.5 meter Australia One telescope with a total exposure time of 1 hour and 41 minutes. The resulting 220 Fits images were combined and further processed in PixInsight.
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Another H II region in the LMC - NGC 1955, NGC 1968 and NGC 1974
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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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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.
Click on the image for a larger version of the picture
M 42 - Orion nebula with Running man nebula
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Messier 42 (M42), the famous Orion Nebula, is an emission-reflection nebula located in the constellation Orion, the Hunter. With an apparent magnitude of 4.0, the Orion Nebula is one of the brightest nebulae in the sky and is visible to the naked eye. It lies at a distance of approximately 1,350 light years from Earth and is the nearest stellar nursery to Earth. The nebula has the designation NGC 1976 in the New General Catalogue.
According to NASA, the majestic nebula can even be seen with the naked eye as it has an apparent magnitude of +4. The faintest object the human eye can see under the best conditions is +6 on the astronomical magnitude scale. It's, therefore, no surprise that the Orion Nebula has captivated civilizations around the world. For example, the ancient Maya of Mesoamerica interpreted the nebula as the cosmic fire of creation, according to NASA.
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