Another go at part of NGC 6188. No dragons from this close (FOV 36'arc) but instantly recognizable. Hubble palette with whitened stars.
Red: SII 7hrs; Green: Ha 4hrs; Blue OIII 7hrs. More time was allocated to the fainter channels in order to reduce noise.
Things we love about this part of the sky:
- Looks like a coastline, with a big blue lake on the left, land on the right, and a craggy, corrugated cliff of shoreline in between.
- Amazing series of rings in OIII presumably blown by stars related to the cluster in the middle of the lake. So many interlocking bubbles as to almost make a froth.
- The coastline includes a large black and ginger cat sneaking vertically downward. A single bright star forms the cat's eye, about 75% of the way down the page. The cat's two ears, pricked up, are very obvious. It's thoughts are of mouse and apple pie.
- Above the cat, and coincident with the cat's tail, is a rocking horse. There are many fine, sharply demarcated pillars, wisps, and tendrils sticking out of the shoreline.
- The rest of the image is awash with faint sharp traceries, much more obvious in the
original image that makes one think of ancient ruins.
EDIT: Here is a
Revised Link revised version after much discussion of artefacts round stars and green blobs.
Minimal processing, all done using our GoodLook 64 suite.
Chewed through some generator fuel taking this set over a couple nights. After 100 mm of rain in ten days (and 80 tonnes of fresh drinking water in our new rainwater tank), condensation had gotten onto the computer-controlled remote "generator off" board, so it had to be disconnected, and the generator switched off by hand at a civilized time in the morning when the temperature had risen above zero. Fred Vanderhaven visited, and gave some useful advice on making the board a bit more resilient. All implemented now.