The Large Magellanic Cloud with the Tarantula Nebula, Göran Nilsson

The Large Magellanic Cloud with the Tarantula Nebula

The Large Magellanic Cloud with the Tarantula Nebula, Göran Nilsson

The Large Magellanic Cloud with the Tarantula Nebula

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Description

A week ago I arrived at Lizard Island (14°27 S, 145° 27´E) for research on their marine biological station until early January. It must be one of the darkest places on earth. Lizard Island is situated on the Great Barrier Reef about 20 km off the Australian coast and this far north in Queensland there are very few human inhabitants on the mainland and no light can be seen there from here. Closest town is Cairns 200 km to the south.

Having a cooled camera here is essential. I have once tried some AP here with a DSLR with extremely noisy results since the night time temperature is rarely below 25°C. I also brought my PoleMaster camera for polar alignment. The whole kit with tripod weighs 8 kg. The lens is only 1.2 kg.

On Friday night it cleared from midnight until sunrise, and PoleMaster helped me do what appears to have been a perfect polar alignment. I then aimed at the Large Magellanic Cloud and collected 145 x 90s of data, so about 3.6 hours, which is rather ok with this fast lens. The StarAdventurer behaved perfectly with no star trails in any of the unguided 90 s subs. So, here is the first result from this adventure, processed in PI and PS on a small laptop screen - I will probably have another go at it when I get back home to my 43" screen

The Tarantula Nebula (NGC2070) can be seen in the upper left corner of the galaxy. Wiki writes: The Tarantula Nebula has an apparent of 8. Considering its distance of about 160,000 ly, this is an extremely luminous non-stellar object. Its luminosity is so great that if it were as close to Earth as the Orion Nebula, the Tarantula Nebula would cast visible shadows.In fact it is the most active starburst region known in the Local Group of galaxies. It is also one of the largest H II regions in the Local Group with an estimated diameter around 200 to 570 pc and also because of its very large size, it is sometimes described as the largest although other H II regions such as NGC 604, which is in the Triangulum Galaxy could be larger.The nebula resides on the leading edge of the LMC where ram pressure stripping, and the compression of the interstellar medium likely resulting from this, is at a maximum.

Comments

Revisions

  • The Large Magellanic Cloud with the Tarantula Nebula, Göran Nilsson
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    The Large Magellanic Cloud with the Tarantula Nebula, Göran Nilsson
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D

Description: I noticed that the image still appeared too bright on some screens so here is an even darker version.

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J

Description: Suppressed the brightest part of the Tarantula with some HDRM in PI

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K

Description: Here I have reverted back by adding data from an earlier version since I had lost a bit of details in the overly red nebulosity.

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M

Description: Complete reprocess using Star Xterminator

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N

Description: Reprocessed with the latest XT tools

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Histogram

The Large Magellanic Cloud with the Tarantula Nebula, Göran Nilsson