Celestial hemisphere:  Southern  ·  Constellation: Ara (Ara)  ·  Contains:  HD148444  ·  HD148445  ·  HD148446  ·  HD148482  ·  HD148609  ·  HD148610  ·  HD148647  ·  HD148660  ·  HD148690  ·  HD148735  ·  HD148770  ·  HD148771  ·  HD148796  ·  HD148809  ·  HD148810  ·  HD148828  ·  HD148837  ·  HD148850  ·  HD148851  ·  HD148921  ·  HD148922  ·  HD148937  ·  HD148954  ·  HD148974  ·  HD148987  ·  HD148988  ·  HD148989  ·  HD149018  ·  HD149054  ·  HD149077  ·  And 290 more.
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Dragons of Ara, vikas chander
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Dragons of Ara

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Dragons of Ara, vikas chander
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Dragons of Ara

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Description

Painted on the canvas of night, are two dragons fighting each other on a portion of the sky known as the altar, or the constellation of Ara. The fighting dragons of Ara are actually shaped from dust and clouds, hot gases and stellar winds. The emission nebula NGC 6188, home to the glowing clouds, is found about 4,000 light years away near the edge of a large molecular cloud unseen at visible wavelengths, in the southern constellation Ara (the Altar).
Joining NGC 6188 on this cosmic canvas, visible toward the lower right, is the rare emission nebula NGC 6164, also created by one of the region's massive O-type stars. Similar in appearance to many planetary nebulae, NGC 6164's striking, symmetric gaseous shroud and faint halo surround its bright central star near the bottom edge.

I have a particular fondness of this target and decided to image it in the classic Hubble palette, using filters which transmit light in the narrowbands of SII, Ha and Oiii. I used double the exposure time for the Sii and Oiii filters as the Ha emission were already very strong and needed lower exposure times in order to achieve the desired signal to noise ratio. My fast Takahashi E160ed reflecting telescope with an aperture of 3.3 made short work of getting a large amount of exposure time . A total of 25 hrs went into the imaging and I also used short RGB exposures for getting good star colours.

Sii = 63 x 600s 10h 30m
Ha = 63 x 300s = 3hrs 55m
Oiii = 63 x 600s 10h 30m
RGB = 10 x 60s each filter
Total integration = 24hrs55m

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Dragons of Ara, vikas chander