Duel of the Dragons (Steeve Body)

Duel of the Dragons

This is a 2 panel mosaic portrait of NGC 6188, the famous dragons of Ara. Nestled deep in the southern hemisphere in the constellation of Ara, this emission nebula is a magnet for us astrophotographers... and for good reasons, it packs some serious visual punch! With its striking resemblance to 2 dragons and its swirling gas clouds, it's has a very mystic appearance.

At the bottom left corner of the frame you will also find NGC 6164, also called theDragons Egg.

The Dragon's Egg, a luminous O-type star, sits at NGC 6164's core. Near the fighting Dragons of Ara, this star birthed its surrounding nebula and blue halo. With a bipolar symmetry, it resembles planetary nebulae. Expected to supernova in a few million years, it's 4,200 light-years away in the constellation, the Carpenter's Square (Norma)

Each year, I circle back to this object to measure how my skills have levelled up. And you're looking at, in my humble opinion, the best shot I've managed yet... I think... My favourite at least !!

In framing this image, my goal was to enhance the sense of movement and flow. By highlighting details in the shadows and striking the right balance with the colours, I've tried to capture the dynamic essence of the interaction between the gasses, the hot and the cold and the dust blocking light.

I've gone the traditional route with an SHO palette blended with RGB stars so nothing out of the ordinary. The only thing I did different in processing this time is that I swapped out DBE for GraXpert... and I believe it is a better tool for the job

Narrowband imaging
Suburban Astrophotography
ZWO ASI1600MM/QHY163M
3nm Narrowbanding filters
Deep Sky Mosaics
Astronomical Society of Victoria (ASV)
AstroBin Platform open discussions community forum
The refractors!
Fine Art Astrophotography
Australian Astrophotographers
AAA : Astronomes et Astrographes Amateurs
N.I.N.A. Users
Southern Hemisphere Astro
Askar Telescopes
Astrophotographes (France)

	Distinct awarded users	Total awarded images
Image of the day
Top picks
Top pick nominations

	Image of the day	Top pick	Top pick nominations	Total submitted
Deep sky
Solar system
Extremely wide field
Star trails
Northern lights
Noctilucent clouds
Landscape

	Image of the day	Top pick	Top pick nominations	Total submitted
Backyard
Traveller
Own remote observatory
Amateur hosting facility
Public amaeteur data
Professional, scientific grade data
Mix of multiple sources
Other
Unknown

Submitted The date and time when you submitted this image for IOTD/TP consideration.	...
Views by Submitters (available since September 19th, 2023) Every image is assigned to 50% of available Submitters. In the event that at least 80% of them don't view the image before its time in the IOTD/TP process expires, it's assigned to the other 50% of Submitters and the process begins anew.
Promotions by Submitters When 3 distinct Submitters promote the image, it moves on to the next stage of the process: evaluation for Top Pick status. This requirement, in addition to anonymization of images and distribution to only a subset of them, prevents biases and ensures that the best images are selected.
Promotions by Reviewers When 3 distinct Reviewers promote the image, it moves on to the next stage of the process: evaluation for IOTD status.
Early dismissal Staff members have a lot of images to inspect on a daily basis, and they can dismiss images if they believe they don't meet the requirements for IOTD/TP selection. If an image is dismissed 5 times, it's removed from the process. This streamlines the process and ensures that any bias present in promotions could be overruled by other staff members.

Status	Advanced success
Started	...
Astrometry.net job	8183094
PixInsight job	468FZMP4OD5RYEPXAP5IZIJ2KWCXOH4T
PixInsight queue size	n/a
PixInsight stage	TASK_LOG

RA (center)	16h38m38s.81
RA (top/left)	16h40m41s.10
RA (top/right)	16h45m18s.81
RA (bottom/right)	16h36m41s.68
RA (bottom/left)	16h32m00s.24

Dec (center)	-48°15′31″.10
Dec (top/left)	-49°19′04″.2
Dec (top/right)	-48°19′51″.0
Dec (bottom/right)	-47°11′53″.1
Dec (bottom/left)	-48°09′45″.4

Image Index:

Contribution Index (beta):