The Statue of Liberty/Torch Bearer Nebula, NGC 3576, and NGC 3603 (flyingairedale)

The Statue of Liberty/Torch Bearer Nebula, NGC 3576, and NGC 3603

I believe that the astrophotographer’s eye is drawn to this part of the sky by the loops of nebulosity arching around the dark cosmic dust cloud structure that resembles the torch bearer that this nebula is named for. This is my second time publishing an image of this target. This time including broad band data while using a platform with a longer focal length and narrower field of view hoping to capture more detail of the fine filaments of those loops of glowing gas.

Discovered by William Herschel in 1834, NGC 3576 has been nicknamed the Torch Bearer or Statue of Liberty Nebula (Wikipedia). NGC 3576, on the right, and 3603, on the left, lie far to the south in the constellation Carina. With a declination of -61, these objects appear 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, NGC 3603 may be the most massive visible H II region in the Milky Way. NGC 3576 is estimated to be about half that distant. Yet, these two nebulae comprise the object RCW 57. RCW stands for Rodgers, Campbell & Whiteoak, the authors of a catalog of Hα-emission regions in the southern Milky Way published in 1960 (Wikipedia).

While not as visually unique, NGC 3603, seems to receive a good deal of scientific interest. When Herschel initially observed it, he speculated that it might be a globular cluster (note the very compact cluster of stars nestled in the heart of the nebula). Observers eventually recognized it had an emission spectrum of a Wolf-Rayet star and it was believed there was only one massive star. Eventually three massive Wolf-Rayet stars were resolved. According to Wikipedia, “the central star cluster is the densest concentration of very massive stars known in the galaxy”.

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The Statue of Liberty/Torch Bearer Nebula, NGC 3576, and NGC 3603

The Statue of Liberty/Torch Bearer Nebula, NGC 3576, and NGC 3603

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The Statue of Liberty/Torch Bearer Nebula, NGC 3576, and NGC 3603

The Statue of Liberty/Torch Bearer Nebula, NGC 3576, and NGC 3603

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