Eridanus Loop

[Ryderscope]

The Eridanus Loop is an extended HII region that forms part of the Orion-Eridanus Superbubble. This image presents a 10 degree by 7 degree section of the Eridanus Loop and includes over 13 hours of exposure in Ha alone, which was barely enough to provide sufficient signal to noise ratio for this faint object. Wikipedia describes the Orion-Eridanus Superbubble as "... located west of the Orion Nebula ..." and " ...is formed from overlapping supernova remnants that may be associated with the Orion OB1 stellar association".

It is a fascinating area to explore with a wide field imaging set up. This image has been taken with my ASI6200 full frame camera and Canon EF200mm lens.

For those that have not found the Milky Way Explorer site yet, it is worth a visit as it is a great resource for doing a deep dive into the Milky Way and for planning imaging projects. The main page to use is the Finkbeiner hydrogen-alpha survey page (http://galaxymap.org/mwe/mwe.php?centreLon=252.24609375&centreLat=-11.6015625&zoom=3&tile_set=sharpless_ha&show_markers=1) which provides an excellent graphical interface.

Included with the thumbnails attached to this post is a marked up screen shot taken from the Milky Way Explorer showing a number of well known objects such as Barnard's Loop and the Orion Nebula (and others). The green box at the bottom of the image is the area covered by this post.

I've also attached a screen shot from Stellarium showing the constellation of Eridanus and an overlay showing the imaged area.

When applying my pareidolia skills to a review of this image a see what could be a schematic of a heart with a network of connecting arteries :D


Click here for image post on Astrobin. (https://astrob.in/tje0kd/0/)

Comments and critique welcome.


Clear skies,
Rodney

[PRejto]

Frantastic image, Rodney. Love the tight microscopic colourful stars.

You may see a heart, but I see a terrifying creature coming straight at me complete with 2 fins/arms, tongue, 2 eyes and a nose! I suppose anthropomorphizing this stellar object may make it "art."

[Ryderscope]

Thanks Peter. I'm thinking of a new term that we can apply to our analysis of these images. I am calling it "astro-pomorphizing" - a unique form of pareidolia experienced by astro imagers :D

[Startrek]

Rodney,
Lovely image
You always seem to find targets that are rarely posted which is wonderful
Great work
Well done !!

Martin

[Ryderscope]

Thanks Martin. Appreciate the feedback.

[Retrograde]

Great image Rodney with lovely colour.

It is clearly very faint given the comparison to Barnard's loop.

[Dave882]

Excellent! Lovely presentation too. Thanks for sharing

[Ryderscope]

Thanks Pete and David. Appreciate the feedback. Yes, it is certainly a faint object resulting in some processing challenges and lots of time peering mindlessly at the screen :D

[gregbradley]

That's a great widefield capture Rodney.

There are so many interesting areas of the Milky Way not often imaged.

Greg.

[strongmanmike]

Excellent Rodney eeeexcellent :thumbsup: love these rarely targeted faint Ha patches and as you illustrate, they are eeeeverywhere and fun to track down and decide on a framing, you have the perfect rig to shoot'em too. That interface is great to use too, I used it for my last wide field image...two years ago now actually..waaaay back in Feb 21 (https://pbase.com/strongmanmike2002/comet_pyxis) :eyepop:

Mike

[Addos]

well done Rod! looks like every step of the process was done to a high standard and it shows in the final product! great colour balance and I'm a fan of where you cut the blacks and shadows.

[Ryderscope]

Greg, Mike, Adam,

Thanks for your responses. There are plenty of opportunities to travel around the HII regions using the Milky Way explorer to identify imaging targets. Your post from two years ago Mike has inspired me to seek out a few more of these.

Thanks for your observation on the blacks and shadows Adam as I did ponder at some length on where to take this. The area has a lot of background faint stuff so I had to try and find a balance between contrast and not losing too much detail.

[AdamJL]

Nice one, Rodney. Looks like a true spiders web.

[Ryderscope]

Thanks Adam, I like the comparison to a spiders web :)