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Old 14-11-2016, 12:04 AM
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strongmanmike (Michael)
Highest Observatory in Oz

strongmanmike is offline
 
Join Date: May 2006
Location: Canberra
Posts: 17,692
Mr Squiggle and a high court judge in the LMC

I went for this area primarily to capture one of my favorite objects, known as N86 or The Lionel Murphy Nebula, a nitrogen rich supernova remnant in the LMC.
Astronomers at Mt Stromlo named the SNR after the High Court judge and Labor minister in the Whitlam government who had both a science degree and Law degree, becasue of an uncanny resemblance and his known interest in science.

Actually I first saw a B&W UK Schmidt (??) enlargement of N86, printed on photographic paper waaay back in about 1985 as a teenager while rummaging around inside one of the outbuildings in the dome of the Oddie refractor at Mt Stromlo. It looked sooo cool and I remember thinking "wow, imagine being able to photograph that!!"

It is quite a small remnant at only about 4 arc min but I was able to frame it with 4 other small emission nebulae, including NGC 1770 (the largest) and two open star clusters in that area of the LMC in a narrow-broad band compilation. Their somewhat random appearance and spread around the rectangular framing reminds me of one of those Mr Squiggle submissions people would make to the show, usually consisting of a sparce collection of random lines and shapes and Mr Squiggle would turn them into a picture of something

The difference in the predominant emissions between the SNR and the other nebs is quite obvious.

N86

Full Frame

Natural colour version

Where is Lionel Murphy..?

And for those interested, HERE is a labelled version that identifies all the good bits

Enjoy

Mike
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Last edited by strongmanmike; 17-11-2016 at 05:40 PM.
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