Mr Squiggle and a high court judge in the LMC

[strongmanmike]

I went for this area primarily to capture one of my favorite objects, known as N86 or The Lionel Murphy Nebula, a nitrogen rich supernova remnant in the LMC.
Astronomers at Mt Stromlo named the SNR after the High Court judge and Labor minister in the Whitlam government who had both a science degree and Law degree, becasue of an uncanny resemblance and his known interest in science.

Actually I first saw a B&W UK Schmidt (??) enlargement of N86, printed on photographic paper waaay back in about 1985 as a teenager while rummaging around inside one of the outbuildings in the dome of the Oddie refractor at Mt Stromlo. It looked sooo cool and I remember thinking "wow, imagine being able to photograph that!!" :)

It is quite a small remnant at only about 4 arc min but I was able to frame it with 4 other small emission nebulae, including NGC 1770 (the largest) and two open star clusters in that area of the LMC in a narrow-broad band compilation. Their somewhat random appearance and spread around the rectangular framing reminds me of one of those Mr Squiggle submissions people would make to the show, usually consisting of a sparce collection of random lines and shapes and Mr Squiggle would turn them into a picture of something :)

The difference in the predominant emissions between the SNR and the other nebs is quite obvious.

N86 (http://www.pbase.com/strongmanmike2002/image/164515288/original)

Full Frame (http://www.pbase.com/strongmanmike2002/image/164515287/original)

Natural colour version (http://www.pbase.com/strongmanmike2002/image/164535135/original)

Where is Lionel Murphy..? (http://www.pbase.com/strongmanmike2002/image/164516318/original) :)

And for those interested, HERE (http://www.pbase.com/strongmanmike2002/image/164539636/original) is a labelled version that identifies all the good bits :thumbsup:

Enjoy :thumbsup:

Mike

[Atmos]

My first thought was "All the stars are elongated" and then I realised I wasn't wearing my glasses :lol:

Looks fantastic Mike, nicely framed and interesting emission bubbles. Sometimes wish I had a 5nm Ha filter for that NII line :/
Every one of those four regions has its own little thing going on.

[glend]

Nice image Mike. I did not realise that NII is normally lumped in on wider Ha filters. Thanks for clarifying that.

[RickS]

I hadn't noticed the resemblance before, Mike :) An interesting little collection captured and processed with your usual flair :thumbsup:

[Placidus]

Both NGC 1770 and LKM QC are exquisite! Very fine detail with no annelids.

[strongmanmike]

I suffer from astigmatism too, annoying when looking at lots of tiny points :lol:



Cheers Glen



Thanks Rick



:lol: Thanks M&T...I'm a PITA huh? :scared3:...just ignore me..hey, you might like worms..? :shrug: ..I thiiiink you are ok with me letting you know when I spot'em :question:...if not, let me know and I'll refrain from digging them up :thumbsup:

Mike

[Andy01]

Fascinating, where do you find references to look for these things?
Another pretty cool capture mate, with very pretty stars :)

[SimmoW]

Another masterpiece of art and technical details, with excellent description, I think you've really found your niche and calling Mike!

The wider view is epic IMHO, really gets them all into context and the eye can drift around for ages at the 5 targets.

Really making me salivate over my almooooost built 1000mm F4 scope!

When studied law in my early uni years, Murphy was one of my idols, a true legal legend, judgements incredible - like your work Mike :bowdown:

[Stevec35]

Another well captured interesting LMC field Mike. Must admit I think Lionel Murphy is a bit of a stretch. I don't see the resemblance at all.

Cheers

Steve

[strongmanmike]

Thanks Andy...years of loving amateur astronomy and astrophotography will pile up a few things I guess :)



So glad you enjoyed the scene Simon :thumbsup: and yes, Lionel was a pillar of what makes a society a good one :thumbsup:



Cheers Steve. That's unfortunate, I could see Lionel in the nebula that first time I saw it on a Schmidt print I found up at the Oddie when only 17 years old...keen visual perception and seeing stuff in otherwise unrelated displays, is a bit of a gift...not often useful but certainly a constant source of intrigue and amusement :) wish I was (or had been) more gifted at seeing solutions in algebra, complex equations or number sequences though....

[topheart]

Hi Mike,
Well done!
Another fascinating object!
Cheers,
Tim

[Placidus]

Worm spotting is welcome, Mike. Best that you keep us honest!

[strongmanmike]

Ok :face:

[strongmanmike]

Just added a more natural colour version (http://www.pbase.com/strongmanmike2002/image/164535135/original) (HaROIIIGB)

Mike

[strongmanmike]

For those interested here is a Labelled Version (http://www.pbase.com/strongmanmike2002/image/164539636/original) that identifies the good bits

Mike

[Atmos]

Very nice Mike! :thumbsup:

[strongmanmike]

Cheers Col...I think I have done enough variations now :P...time to move on.

Mike

[gregbradley]

Bat 99 may be an interesting target for a long focal length.It looks like a SNR shockwave bubble.

Greg

[strongmanmike]

It's a Berthon-Jones favourite...a Wolf Rayet nebula around BAT99-11 :D

Not so much a long focal length.. but rather a better image scale (which can be acheived in a number of ways :)) but more importantly, in better seeing ;) While not bad, the seeing for this data set was pretty average for my site.

Mike

[GTB_an_Owl]

i see a face in the image but not the one you outlined Mike

geoff

[strongmanmike]

Ha ha yeah, t'wasn't me who named this one, was Dopita, Mathewson and Ford at Mt Stromlo who are to blame :)

However I do see what they saw and so did Lionel, who was pretty chuffed about it at the time apparently :thumbsup:

Mike

[gregbradley]

Yes I was thinking that after I posted the comment. Seeing would make or break that as its a rather small object even for long focal length.

Greg.

[strongmanmike]

Still a lot of confusion out there around focal length, image scale and seeing :shrug:...it is image scale that counts, not the focal length. There seems to be this fixation on focal length for the sake of it, like it is some sort of panacea for revealing fine features in deep sky objects :shrug: when frankly, it simply isn't....in reality if the seeing isn't good enough, no amount of focal length, or aperture for that matter, will help much in this department.

Images from Mt Lemmon, Cerro Tololo and even Sierra Remote et al, are highly detailed, not becasue of the focal length but becasue of the image scale ("/pix) and mostly, becasue the seeing is excellent!

:)

Mike

[Slawomir]

Very interesting collection of space stuff that I was totally unaware of!

I like the natural colour version more, but the original one shows structures more clearly.

Thank you Mike for inspiring us, mortals! :)

[Slawomir]

My thoughts exactly. I am imaging at 1.33arcseconds per pixel and this is about diffraction limit for my 4inch doublet, and I reckon the detail is not that bad at times, when guiding used to be acceptable and seeing was okay. Perhaps one day I will step up to about 1arcsec per pixel and this is probably reasonable max for suburbs in a coastal location. With my current camera I will get to that resolution at 760 mm FL.

[RickS]

I'm a fan of the natural colour version too :thumbsup:

[strongmanmike]

Cheers Rick, I think I like it best too :)

Mike