War and Peace Nebula - NGC 6357 (Bruce Rohrlach)

Celestial hemisphere: Southern · Constellation: Scorpius (Sco) · Contains: NGC 6357 · the War and Peace Nebula

War and Peace Nebula - NGC 6357, Bruce Rohrlach

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War and Peace Nebula - NGC 6357

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War and Peace Nebula - NGC 6357

My first test of South Australian skies.
The War and Peace nebula (NGC 6357) in Scorpius.

After arriving in Adelaide a fortnight ago and setting up home for a year in Seacliff, have endured 6/7 days of cloudy winter weather, but last night the stars came out to play. All the bits and pieces of the scope appear to have arrived at their new destination without going astray, so after a bit of faffing around getting used to finding polar south from a new location, I finally squeezed in 3 nights of narrow band imaging on NGC 6357, the War and Peace nebula (aka Lobster nebula).

Home to some of the largest stars ever discovered, the open stellar cluster Pismis 24 (just below centre of image) blazes from the core of NGC 6357. Several stars in the cluster weigh in at over 100 times the mass of the Sun.

Nine hours of exposure on the War and Peace nebula (NGC 6357) from Adelaide's suburban fringe skies - all 30 second subs - over 3 nights of imaging. i.e.1080 ! sub-frames of narrowband data rendered in the Hubble (SHO) palette.

The core of the nebula is richer in oxygen gas whilst the fringes have higher proportions of hydrogen and sulphur gas. These gases are being made to fluoresce by ionising radiation being emitted from the giant young stars that comprise the Pismis 24 star cluster.
The main difference between 3 hours and 9 hours of exposure is not so much in the detail of the fainter fringes of the nebula as I would have expected, but rather in the noise levels which are much lower with the additional data. I think the main benefit is that I would be able to enlarge the image further if I was to print for a wall mount.

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War and Peace Nebula - NGC 6357

War and Peace Nebula - NGC 6357

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Image Index:

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War and Peace Nebula - NGC 6357

War and Peace Nebula - NGC 6357

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