A bright emission nebula, located 820 light-years away in the Scorpius region of the Milky Way. The red colour comes from ionised hydrogen atoms, excited by young bright stars within.
This was a one hour exposure, unguided.
Since I began reusing my light pollution filter a couple of months ago, the SharpCap software has been recognising a more contrasty sky and as a consequence has been recommending longer optimal frame exposures. So I felt the need to resume image guiding; and this field night with the Society marked my return to guiding after a gap of twelve months (when my Starshoot guide camera carked it). I had been making do with multiple short exposures but this night I set up my ZWO 290 as guide camera in order to take a lesser number of longer exposures.
Not all went well of course.
I took two deep sky images during the evening and the guiding was perfect for the other image but failed completely for this particular one. One of those mystery glitches, I suppose – the two objects were only 15° apart.
The Moon is now waxing and will make it difficult to do any serious imaging for the next two weeks but I have two more images left to post over the next few days.
Weather is always an issue and tonight was a scheduled First Quarter Moon Public Night with the Society and the sky was clear but the wind was gusting up to 60 kph, making it unsafe to venture over to the Observatory. How strange to have a clear sky and still be forced to cancel!
Object Details:
Designation: Cat’s Paw Nebula, NGC 6334, Gum 64.
Constellation: Scorpius.
Visual magnitude: +10.0
Apparent size: 40′ x 30′
Diameter: 9.5 light years.
Distance: 820 light years.
Altitude during exposure: 57° above W horizon.
Please feel free to ignore the technical stuff.
Image: Exposure: 83 x 43.75 sec = 60 min. |
Processing: Image acquisition: SharpCap. |
Gear:
Telescope: | SkyWatcher Esprit | Type: | 120ED triplet refractor |
Focal: | 840 mm F/7 | Mount: | SkyWatcher EQ6-R Pro |
Camera: | ZWO ASI 071 MC Pro |
Type: | CMOS 28.4mm 16 Mpx |
Optical aids: | Flattener: Y; filter: N | Guiding: | No (failed) |
Polar aligning: | QHYCCD PoleMaster | Polar Error: | 00’ 28” |
Geek Log:
[ZWO ASI071MC Pro] |
Auto Exp Target Brightness=100 |
Image © Roger Powell
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