RCW 57 at the prow of Argo appears to be a rather heterogeneous star-forming region.
Here we've shot a three panel mosaic to get a field width of just over one degree. We've processed it two ways,
one to emphasise the brightest features, and and
another to to bring out some extremely faint and wispy background material.
There are two dominant sub-regions, which could not be more different from each other.
At the left is the area around open cluster NGC 3603. Without much difficulty, one could see the weathered, splintered cross section of a hardwood log, left too long in the sun and rain. (On the other hand, one sees not the specifics, but the general feel of multiple overlapping and contradictory images of the face of a frenetic pekingese puppy, certainly lots of eyes and noses and mouths in about the right arrangement). Either way, the character of the area is of harsh contrasts and chaotic disarray.
On the right, we see a much softer, but less chaotic and more structured area given multiple NGC numbers, notably NGC 3581, but to us, in H-alpha, we see it is a coherent whole.
We invite you to see the very brightest lower half as a dancing Hereford cow. Two white horns extending upward. Curly dark Herford brow. One small black eye with a vein running diagonally across it. Two floppy ears. A white muzzle. Below, we see one very distinct arm and two dancing legs, each with brilliant white markings.
Above the cow's horns, we see a huge gypsy wagon with H-alpha shock fronts producing a canvas-like roof. In front of the wagon, and above the horns of the cow, there are two jet black dogs, one on our left upright and howling, one on the right merely a head in silhouette.
Far above the canopy of the wagon we see a spidery tangle of inky black threads like an octopus or Hydra, against the very faint general H-alpha glow.
Toward bottom left is a small bright insect, a butterfly or bee perhaps. There is much else to see.
3 nM H-alpha filter. Aspen CG16M on 20 inch PlaneWave. Nineteen 1 hour subs. Moon averaging about 50% full. Seeing pretty good at around 1.8 sec arc.
Processing with GoodLook 64.
Very best,
Mike and Trish