NGC 2070 and the Tarantula Nebula

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(This image shows considerable detail. Is it real? See https://www.astrobin.com/rcaio4/?nc=user to help to assuage doubts!)

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OTA: TAO 150 (f/7.3)

Camera: FLI - ML16200 (1.13 arcseconds/pixel)

Observatory: Deep Sky West, Chile

EXPOSURES:

Red 6 x 600 seconds

Green 6 x 600

Blue 11 x 600

Hα 14 x 300 + 24 x 900

SII 20 x 900

OIII 20 x 1800

Total exposure 26 hours

Image Width: ~1.4 deg

Processed by Alex Woronow(2019) using PixInsight, Matlab, Topaz, Affinity

The colors assigned to the narrowband images correspond to their actual RGB colors.

NGC 2070, an open cluster, and the surrounding ‘Tarantula Nebula’ do not lie in our Milky Way Galaxy, but in our neighboring galaxy, the ‘Large Magellanic Cloud,’ (LMC) at a distance of almost 160,000 light-years. The super-cluster, NGC 2070, which you can clearly see at the center of the Tarantula Nebula (the white grouping of stars) provides most of the energy that illuminates this very large hydrogen cloud. At the center of the star cluster, the condensation (tight grouping) of stars, named R136, is one of the most energetic star clusters known and contains the most massive star known: R136a1, which is 8.7 million times more luminous than our sun. The cluster’s total mass is about 450,000 solar masses, and it will likely become a globular cluster in the distant future.

With the energy of R136a1, and many other giant stars in NGC 2070, the Tarantula nebula, despite its great distance, shines at magnitude 8. If it were as close as the Great Nebula in Orion, it would cast shadows at night! (Well, if you lived in NY City, no shadows.)

By the way, the grainy background in the image results from the plethora of stars in the LMC. In addition to the star cluster described above, this image captures several other clusters and nebulae. The Tarantula Nebula is a first-class image target in the southern sky.