Celestial hemisphere:  Southern  ·  Constellation: Carina (Car)  ·  Contains:  NGC 3576  ·  NGC 3579  ·  NGC 3590  ·  NGC 3603
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NGC 3576 and 3603 in Narrowband (SHO), flyingairedale
NGC 3576 and 3603 in Narrowband (SHO)
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NGC 3576 and 3603 in Narrowband (SHO)

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NGC 3576 and 3603 in Narrowband (SHO), flyingairedale
NGC 3576 and 3603 in Narrowband (SHO)
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NGC 3576 and 3603 in Narrowband (SHO)

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Description

My eye is naturally drawn to the loops of nebulosity near the center of the image. The shape reminds me of the loops of plasma following magnetic field lines in a solar prominence. Discovered by William Herschel in 1834, it has been nicknamed the Torch Bearer or Statue of Liberty Nebula (Wikipedia).

The nebulae lies far to the south in the constellation Carina. With a declination of -61, this object appears high in the sky over Deep Sky West's southern site in Chile where data for this image was captured. It is not visible from most of the northern hemisphere. At an estimated 20,000 light years distant, it is a very large region of nebulosity. My exploration of the southern night sky through Deep Sky West's system in Chile has allowed me to learn about many new (to me) objects and some history of southern sky exploration. According to my online research, these two nebulae (3603 on the left and 3576 on the right) comprise the object RCW 57. With some more online research, I learned that RCW stands for Rodgers, Campbell & Whiteoak, the authors of a catalog of Hα-emission regions in the southern Milky Way published in 1960 (Wikipedia). Again, a new to me catalog and fairly recent compared to the many 18th and 19th century catalogs that I'm used to referencing.

Captured in Hydrogen Alpha, Oxygen III and Sulfur II emission lines, it is presented in false color using a modified Hubble Palette.

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NGC 3576 and 3603 in Narrowband (SHO), flyingairedale

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