Celestial hemisphere:  Southern  ·  Constellation: Carina (Car)  ·  Contains:  NGC 3293
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NGC3293, Brian Boyle
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NGC3293

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NGC3293, Brian Boyle
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NGC3293

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Description

NGC3293 is a beautiful open cluster lying just north of the Gabriela Mistral nebula.   The banded structure of the nebula is rather reminiscent of the Pleiades nebula.  It is ironic that the Southerm Pleiades lie a few degrees further degrees further south, but arguably make for a much less interesting target.   Of course, the NGC3293 is an emission - as opposed to to a reflection nebula.  Nevertheless, the dust grain alignment within the gas is spectular.  In this case it rather reminds me of a sailing vessel with a central mast and rigging coming down to the blue deck.

Imaged just in Ha and [OIII] the colours are nevertheless fascinating.  I particularly like the differing shades of blue across the nebula.  Adding in [SII] makes no difference to the image, as the [SII] has an almost identical distribution to the Ha.  

Again this is a relatively short total exposure.  I did try to take Ha and OIII data - as well as RGB stars - but my new mount has developed an alarming sudden but unpredictable 10-arcsec lurch in RA every minute of so.  So all last night's data was lost. 

So, in case my mount doesn't recover, here is what I have.  Enjoy.

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