LMC core - Snake Valley - March 2018

[rcheshire]

The middle of the Large Magellanic Cloud - This was never going to be an easy target - more of a learning exercise. StarTools has dressed it up a little.

Technical...

~2 hours of 3 minute subs @ iso800. Cooled 0C FL ~255 with a 1.6 crop factor (450D).

Preprocessing in Asterism - Super-bias defect map and flat.

Guiding was a little inconsistent (all fixed now). Would have taken a new set of subs using a different strategy but the weather intervened.

Lots more shorter exposures should produce better stars and detail in the Tarantula.

There are some interesting areas of Green nebulosity, which I presume is OIII - interesting targets with a lot more FL.

[PKay]

Good one Rowland

You certainly have captured a lot of stars!
Good focus and lots of colour.

Have another go with less stretching to see the difference.

And yes shorter subs would have changed things.

[xelasnave]

Hi Rowland
That is a very pleasing image well done.
Alex

[raymo]

I agree, nice job Rowland, but I feel that it is neither one thing nor the other. IMHO
it would have been better to either show the whole thing, or go in closer and image a specific object, or objects within it.
raymo

[rcheshire]

Thanks PKay. Yes lots of stars... I have taken your advice and attached a less vibrant but probably more faithful rendition.



Thanks Alex. A work in progress



Couldn't agree more Raymo. Perhaps the less saturated version in which I have attempted to extract the multitude of features in this region is a better approach.

It's got some way to go but I appreciate the feedback. Next new moon if the weather holds - but we need the water.

[silv]

I like them both.
Can you see the extreme green, totally circular dot in the first image? It's in the lower eighth , a bit to the right from the center.
What's that?

[rcheshire]

Thanks Annette.

The green is glowing oxygen. But I'm not yet sure of the exact identity of the nebula. Similar to a description of green in the ghost nebula, the energy is provided by a solar wind emanating from nearby stars or very high temperature gas.

I'm sure someone can answer this a little better.

I am inclined to Raymo's suggestion to concentrate on chunks of the LMC. There is a myriad of interesting features - should make it a project.

[ChrisV]

That's really stunning Rowland

[RickS]

Excellent work, Rowland! Such a busy FOV.

[rcheshire]

Thanks Chris

Thanks Rick

[LightningNZ]

This is a superb image Rowland. Deserves to be in the Deep Sky forum IMO.
Well done.
-Cam

[rcheshire]

Thanks Cam. I like the look of it - but wasn't quite sure about the quality of acquisition and processing.