Celestial hemisphere:  Southern  ·  Constellation: Dorado (Dor)  ·  Contains:  30 Dor Cluster  ·  NGC 2044  ·  NGC 2060  ·  NGC 2069  ·  NGC 2070  ·  NGC 2092  ·  Tarantula Nebula
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A Narrowband Dive into the Core of the Tarantula Nebula, John Hayes
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A Narrowband Dive into the Core of the Tarantula Nebula

Getting plate-solving status, please wait...
A Narrowband Dive into the Core of the Tarantula Nebula, John Hayes
Powered byPixInsight

A Narrowband Dive into the Core of the Tarantula Nebula

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Description

The Tarantula Nebula (also known as 30 Doradus) is a large star forming region located within the Large Magellanic Cloud at a distance of about 160,000 ly.  It has a diameter of nearly 2,000 ly, which makes it a large object in the sky, subtending about 40' x 25'.  As you can see here, the nebula doesn't quite fit into the 23.8' x 35.8' FOV of my telescope.  With an apparent magnitude of 8, it is a very popular target for imagers with access to the southern sky.  It is the largest, most violent star forming region known in the local group of galaxies.  NGC 2070 is an open cluster located within the nebula, which includes a compact region of young super massive stars (known as R136) that energize the nebula with intense high-energy radiation and stellar winds.  In fact, the excitation provided by R136 is so intense that the Tarantula nebula is one of the most luminous non-stellar objects in the sky.  NGC 2060 is a smaller open cluster located in the nebula, which contains a super nova remnant that likely produced a pulsar with a rotation period of 16 milliseconds.

The Tarantula's  size, wide brightness range, and complexity make it as popular and as challenging as the Orion Nebula as a target.  As the moon waxed toward full, I needed a narrowband target and the Tarantula was an obvious choice, since it was about as high as it gets--and because I've never had an opportunity to image it before.  I quickly discovered that the signals in both Ha and OIII are extremely strong; however, the SII signal is very weak and that may be why fully processed HSO images are relatively rare.  

Since it's clear every night, I was able to gather a lot of data for the two weeks around the new moon.  With such weak SII signal, the processing was challenging and it took me a more than a few tries to achieve a channel mix that worked.  I also used the Ha channel as a Lum signal.  I could have probably created a composite synthetic channel that would have been a bit cleaner but once I found a color solution, it was too much trouble to redo everything--and I liked this result.  Unlike in my other NB images,  I wound up leaving a hint of green and purple in this result because, to my eye, it added depth and warmth to the final result.  Be sure to zoom in and look around, there are some regions in this image with some very intriguing knots and tendrils.

Finally, I want to say a few words about my experiences so far at Obstech.  First, Vincent Suc does an amazing and very professional job running the organization.  He gets an A+ for communications and responsiveness to problems.  The guys on the mountain who I've worked with--namely Franscisco, Felip, and Rodrigo, have all been really fantastic.  Last night, I couldn't connect to my guide camera and Franscisco jumped on it today to help me troubleshoot the problem.  They even went to the effort to build and mount a special dark panel for me.  Everyone is super patient and they know what they are doing.  It has been a total pleasure to work with all the staff on the mountain.  Overall the support that I've received has been really outstanding.  Thank you guys!!

As usual, C&C are welcome.

John

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  • A Narrowband Dive into the Core of the Tarantula Nebula, John Hayes
    Original
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    A Narrowband Dive into the Core of the Tarantula Nebula, John Hayes
    B

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A Narrowband Dive into the Core of the Tarantula Nebula, John Hayes

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