Westerlund 1

[Stevec35]

This is my first image in a while taken under reasonably good conditions. Westerlund 1 is a rarely imaged massive star cluster in Ara. It's very reddened because of interstellar absorption.

Cheers

Steve

members.pcug.org.au/~stevec/Westerlund1_STXL16200_RC14.htm

[gregbradley]

How interesting. Bizarre it gets that lovely red colour. The wonders of the Universe eh?

Nice shot.

Greg.

[Stevec35]

Sorry - screwed up the link. This should work better.

http://members.pcug.org.au/~stevec/Westerlund1_STXL16200_RC14.htm

[strongmanmike]

Really cool shot Steve :thumbsup:

Mike

[RickS]

Very cool, Steve :thumbsup:

[Stevec35]

Thanks Rick



Thanks Mike. It went surprisingly well considering that I'm usually only operating at 50% efficiency during the cold weather.



Thanks Greg. As you know I do like the obscure stuff. Perhaps I'll revisit it in infrared some time.

[topheart]

Well done Steve!
What a beautiful and interesting target!
Cheers,
Tim

[Peter Ward]

I know I’ve mentioned it before, but will say it again...gee those ion-milled optics are smooth. Beautiful star colurs. Nice one :thumbsup::thumbsup:

[Stevec35]

Thanks Peter. Ion milled or not RCOS used to make good scopes. Pity no one wants to buy my 12.5"



Thanks Tim. For a change all the equipment worked when I was taking this too.

[Peter Ward]

:shrug:

Finite point engineered carbon OTA with certified Sitall optics for a song vs made in China OTA and unquantified optics. I know what I’d pick.

Well...I guess you can take a horse to water, but can’t make him drink :)

[Geoff45]

Nice tight image Steve. The interesting thing is that most of the stars in the cluster are blue supergiants, much reddened by absorption.
Geoff

[Stevec35]

Thanks Geoff. Yes that's true.

[Atmos]

That’s a fascinating star cluster Steve! Amazing how red it is.

If I had the money and a mount that could handle it, I’d take that RCOS in a heart beat. It’s probably pushing the weight limit of my DDM60 though.

[Stevec35]

Thanks Colin. Yeah - I guess my asking price for the 12.5" seems pretty high but it is a quality instrument. If I don't sell it one option is to set it up in another observatory but hosting is really expensive (at least I think it is). I'm not familiar with a DDM60 but this thing is roughly the same size as a C14.

[atalas]

Splendid cluster Steve :thumbsup::thumbsup::thumbsup:

[Stevec35]

Thanks Louie. Maybe I'll have a go at Westerlund 2 sometime. There are only two in the Westerlund catalog.

[Jeff]

Fascinating Steve.

I would be most interested to hear how you first leaned of this unusual cluster.

Jeff

[Stevec35]

Thanks Jeff. I have a colleague in the UK, a gentleman named Sakib Rasool, who regularly sends me target lists of (mostly) little known objects. Sakib is mainly interested in planetary nebulae but he includes plenty of other object types too.

[Placidus]

Lovely, Steve.

Geoff mentioned that although the stars are blue supergiants (typical of a young open cluster, I guess) they are extremely reddened by absorption by intervening dust. I suppose that the reason why (a) the cluster has tiny angular diameter and (b) the very bright blue field stars are not thus reddened is that the cluster is very far away.

Great work,
Mike

[Andy01]

That's quite an extraordinary find Steve, well done! :thumbsup:

[Stevec35]

Thanks Mike. It's about 15,000 light years away which is about double the distance of clusters such as the Jewelbox. There's obviously a lot of dust in the way.



Thanks Andy