Lambda Centauri from NZ

[john_drummond]

Hi all,

here's an image of the nebulosity around Lambda Centauri, a nice, yet sometimes neglected nebula situated between Eta Carina and Crux. IC 2948 was taken with a 300mm Mamiya MF lens at f5.6. 10 minute subs, 6 x luminance (1x1) and 3 x RGB (2x2). Imaged on 28th April 2008. Dark rural sky. I've slightly cropped it. FOV is approximately 6 x 4 degrees.

IC 2948 was discovered by Royal Harvard Frost in 1906-8.
The open cluster at the upper right is NGC 3766 (the Pearl Cluster). The strip of four bright stars in the centre of this object is open cluster IC 2944. The round nebula at centre right is RCW 60 and the small nebula at centre bottom is RCW 61. Open cluster 2714 is at lower right and smaller Melotte 105 is lower yet. This object is also known as the "Running Chicken Nebula."

Image -
http://www.possumobservatory.co.nz/lambda_cen-neb-300mm_mamiya_lens@f5,6-10min-lum1x1,rgb3x3-20c-080428-web-ip.jpg
or
http://tinyurl.com/6s2omm


Cheers

John Drummond
Possum Observatory (IAU Code: E94)
Gisborne, New Zealand
E 177° 53', S 38° 38'
Email: john_drummond@xtra.co.nz
Website: http://www.possumobservatory.co.nz
Images: http://www.possumobservatory.co.nz/latest_images-all-continuing.htm

[iceman]

Beautiful image, John, and :welcome: back! Great to see some more images from you.

[[1ponders]]

Nice one John. :thumbsup: Good to see you back and posting. ;)

[h0ughy]

wow thats a nice image. Great composition

[Ric]

Lovely capture John. Great detail and colour which is set off nicely against that starry backdrop.

Cheers

[jase]

Nicely framed John. The target suits a pleasing wide field. Looks like a slight colour channel misalignment is present. Is there a reason why you binned the RGB? With this lens, I think you'd get a much better result unbinned for RGB data as well. A 2x2 bin delivers 12 arcsecs/pixel, less than ideal.