The Large Magellenic Cloud is a satellite galaxy of the Milky Way and forms a pair with its other sibling, the Small Magellenic Cloud. Although much of the galaxy's spiral arms have been distorted due to gravitational influence, it still looks spectacular having retained its central stellar bar. Located somewhere near stellar bar's edge is the Tarantula nebula which is super bright considering that it resides within the Large Magellenic Cloud outside of the Milky Way but still easily resolved with a small telescope. It is said that if the Tarantula Nebula was as close to Earth as the Orion Nebula, it would cast visible shadows across the night sky.
I originally planned to image this target at a Bortle 3 site in Cawarral but due to bad weather I ended up imaging this at the hotel under Bortle 5 conditions.
Shot at 70mm F2.8 @ ISO1600 using a static tripod following the NPF rule.
I made an exact crop version of this target to show its relative size against my other image of the Small Magellanic Cloud
https://www.astrobin.com/5evds4/This image was critiqued by Nico Carver (Nebula Photos). Watch it here
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ywbAMnwPx1Y&t=22876s
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