Three years ago, we had a crack at it, and decided that this southern region looked like Vulcan's Anvil: A glowing anvil is being struck by an invisible hammer, and the impact has melted the edge of the anvil, sending splashes of molten copper, in the shape of dripping bats and other lost souls. Our annotated thumbnail shows some of these.
We've since added another three nights of data, with an overlapping mini-mosaic to explore more to the north, for a total of 34 hrs.
The nebula as a whole is in the form of a burst bubble, open at the top, like a ruptured Graffian follicle perhaps. The bubble is much brighter at the bottom, near NGC 3572. Perhaps it is just proximity to the light source, or perhaps the material is thicker there.
On close examination, and continuing both the Vulcan and Egg themes, the bubble transpires to be the body of an Emerald Firebird, a kind of flammable emu, with very long neck, a star forming one beady eye, and extremely obvious legs and claws, which we've labelled in the diagram.
Peering over the firebird's shoulder one can kinda make out the deformed snout and one ear of an extraneous fox. The firebird had better watch out, because we get a lot of these at Placidus, and they ate our chooks.
At the extreme left hand edge of the image is an interesting blue nebula, rich in OIII. In the dripping mess from Vulcan's Anvil is another very small but intensely bright round nebula. There are a few good Bok globules and cometary knots toward the centre of the image.
Aspen CG16M on 20 inch PlaneWave on MI-760 fork. Green: H-alpha 11 hrs, Blue: OIII 11 hrs, Red: SII 8 hrs, and NII 4 hrs, all in 1hr subs. 0.55 sec arc per pixel. Image height about 48 min arc, north up.
No flats were used, because Andor seem to have done a fantastic job of cleaning the sensor, and we've not gotten around to doing more flats.
We were treated to unusually good seeing (FWHM around 3.5 sec arc), very clear skies, and moon 50% to 25% illuminated.
Hope your Firebird-spotting hats are working well. Some Stravinsky might help.
Superb field and details Mike. Everything's ticking along now.
Thanks Marc. Took a little while to get things shipshape after the hiatus, but it's fully automated again now.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Andy01
Looks awesome guys, reminds me of the alien ship from Alien/Prometheus.
Nice to see you back on the horse!
Thank you Andy. Exactly like the aforementioned ship. Amazing similarity.
Quote:
Originally Posted by SimmoW
Love that Lost Souls region M&T! That should be a major target for those with even bigger 'scopes
Ta, Simon. Oh to have (free and easy) access to even a modest scope in the high desert. Yes, that was the region that did it for us initially. Like Rodin's Gates of Hell, or Michelangelo's Last Judgement. Or just Meatloaf perhaps?
Quote:
Originally Posted by Stevec35
A very interesting looking object that I've never seen before and well processed as usual. To me it looks like a crab waving its claws about.
Cheers
Steve
Thanks muchly, Steve. Yes we've seen yabbies caught in the neighbour's dam doing that.
Quote:
Originally Posted by JA
Just had a fly through your image. Amazing
Best
JA
Thanks, J.
Quote:
Originally Posted by LewisM
Looks like a giant pidgeon poised to do...what pidgeons do
GREAT image.
Thanks Lewis. Good news: we've just taken delivery of four replacement chooks. They'd never do anything like that.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Jeff
Fascinating, especially with the fine detail and annotations.
Definitely looks like a giant jelly fish, swimming towards a bight light.
Excellent capture of a rarely imaged neb guys, some lovely and very interesting details to be seen, enjoyed the view. I see all the things you and others have mentioned too but.. I think Andy has it...Prometheus
That’s a wonderful image M&T.
Particularly like the dark globules down the bottom. Went and turned my phone upside down to get a better view of them Golden peaks, presumably radiation from the open cluster.
Excellent capture of a rarely imaged neb guys, some lovely and very interesting details to be seen, enjoyed the view. I see all the things you and others have mentioned too but.. I think Andy has it...Prometheus
Mike
Thanks muchly, Mike. Yes, you and Andy are right. It is exactly like that spaceship.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Atmos
That’s a wonderful image M&T.
Particularly like the dark globules down the bottom. Went and turned my phone upside down to get a better view of them Golden peaks, presumably radiation from the open cluster.
Cheers, Colin. Yes, they're all brighter on the side facing the cluster.
Quote:
Originally Posted by topheart
Excellent work. Interesting object!!
Thanks,
Cheers,
Tim
Thanks, Tim. Nice to hear from you.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Camelopardalis
Cracking image M&T
Ta, Dunk.
Quote:
Originally Posted by gregbradley
Awesome work M and T.
Greg.
Thanks Greg, glad you like it too.
We're both feeling guilty. Last night was clear, especially later, but we were exhausted after feeding guests, chook-purchasing sprees, etc. The new moon sky went unphotographed.