Celestial hemisphere:  Southern  ·  Constellation: Scutum (Sct)  ·  Contains:  NGC 6645  ·  The star γSct
B 312 (Barnard 312), Chris Howard
B 312 (Barnard 312)
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B 312 (Barnard 312)

B 312 (Barnard 312), Chris Howard
B 312 (Barnard 312)
Powered byPixInsight

B 312 (Barnard 312)

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Description

I have had my eye on B312 for a while. It's this beautiful arrow shape of interstellar dust twisting through the dense starfield where Scutum edges up against Serpens and Sagittarius, just up from the Milky Way core. B312 is thought to be made up of rapidly condensing clouds of molecular hydrogen (H2) that will in the near future become a star-forming region. Cool. I'm not holding my breath. How near into the future is relative, but you'll be on the right track if you think in terms of galactic time scales. Here in New Hampshire time moves a little slower and B312 is very low in the south, never rising above 32 degrees or so. I can only capture it east of the meridian, so I don't have a lot of time before the earth rotates it behind trees and transmission lines. And guiding that far south, just above the horizon, is always trouble, doesn't matter which mount I use. Right now in PHD2, I'm happy with a 1.25 arcsecond total RMS. I will just have to enjoy the far south nebula time while I can, and deal with it in post, as they say. Notes: 36 x 240-second Ha sub-exposures stacked in DeepSkyStacker, processed in PSCC2020.

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B 312 (Barnard 312), Chris Howard