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Old 02-08-2011, 06:19 AM
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SkyViking (Rolf)
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Join Date: Aug 2009
Location: Waitakere Ranges, New Zealand
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The Hourglass in M8, with Hubble comparison

Hi All, I have never really made an image of the Lagoon Nebula since it is way too big for my tiny chip (it would require something like a 30 panel mosaic ), but I thought I'd give the Hourglass in the centre a go.
I managed to get an image of this interesting part of the nebula with fairly good resolution.

About the Hourglass Nebula:
Deep in the heart of the Lagoon Nebula (Messier 8) lies the bright Hourglass Nebula which is a distinctly shaped patch of nebulosity framed by tornado-like structures half a light-year in length. The star immediately to the left of the Hourglass is Herschel 36 which is thought to be responsible for most of the illumination in the area. The strong stellar winds are tearing the molecular clouds apart and is it believed that the difference in temperature between the hot surface of the clouds and their cold interior, combined with the pressure from the stellar winds is producing strong horizontal shear which twists the clouds into tornado-like shapes. The most prominent of these twisters, visible in the Hubble image, form the top edge of the hourglass and it can clearly be seen in the above image which is a stack of 136 exposures of 10.5 seconds each. Also visible throughout the image are many of the newborn stars that light up the rest of the Lagoon Nebula.

Image is here:
http://www.pbase.com/rolfolsen/image/136878355/original

Image details:
Taken 31/07/2011
136 x 10.5s, no filters
10 Newtonian f/5
ToUCam Pro SC1

Hope you enjoy. Comments/critique is welcome.

Regards,
Rolf
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Last edited by SkyViking; 02-08-2011 at 01:15 PM.
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