NGC 6072 "Southern Moth" planetary nebulae in Scorpius

[Pilgrim]

Being quite bright, this nebula is small as about half the area of the famous "Ring Nebula" in the Lyra. The constellation Scorpius is so rich in large bright deep sky objects that this tiny nebula surprisingly rarely becomes a target for amateur astrophotographers.

I filmed it from my balcony during over 28 nights from 29 May 2022 to 29 September 2022.
Australia, QLD, Brisbane, Bortle-7 sky ("red" light pollution area, 18.9m SQM)

The image is composition or LRGB stars and narrowband tricolor with formula of R = H-alpha, B = OIII+0.3*SII, G = OIII. Color was balanced to get close to it's natural value from RGB composition.

Taken with TAL-250K (Klevtsov's system 10" reflector) telescope 0.7x NPZ Reducer/flattener MkII, ZWO ASI2600MM camera with ZWO LRGB filter set and Antlia 2nm narrowband filters. Mount EQ6-R.

Total accumulation time 46 hours 20 min:
Ha: 20x20 min
SII: 62x20 min
OIII: 20x20 min
L: 160x2 min
R: 66x2 min
G: 67x2 min
B: 65x2 min

More tech details and full version at Astrobin:
https://www.astrobin.com/i3pe4g/B/

[AstroViking]

Oh no, it's Mothra!! :D :P

That's a great image, with subtle colours and good detail. Nicely captured - I like it a lot.

Cheers,
V

[Ryderscope]

An excellent PB Igor. Well presented and definitely looks like a moth fluttering through space :thumbsup:

[Stephane]

Igor, such a tiny target to take on, but you've done so very well. Some really interesting detail and colours coming through.

[strongmanmike]

Yeah, really great result Igor, well done. There are definitely some colourful and intriguing PN's to shoot out there :thumbsup:

Mike

[Dave882]

That’s a huge project on a tiny object and a beautiful result! The colour, detail and depth is wonderful :eyepop:

[Pilgrim]

Steve, Rodney, Stephane, Michael, David, thank you very much for kind words! :)

I was initially surprised that there are so few photos of this nebula, although it is small, but not nearly as tiny like many "Hubble-only" planetary nebulae. In fact, I was also secretly hoping that it might have a large but very weak halo (something like hydrogen in M57, or mixed in M27 or super-weak mixed as around IC 5148). So I decided to give my best as much as possible in it's visibility season from my balcony. Unfortunately, this hypothesis has not been confirmed, at least on the level of sensitivity available with my LP conditions and equipment. But it turned out well enough anyway:)