Lovely picture Paul, I imaged it with my ED80 last week (
http://www.iceinspace.com.au/forum/s...ad.php?t=84733) and was facinated by the contrast between 3576 and 3603 considering their different size and location in our galaxy. I have been hanging out to get to imaging this with my RC10 (waiting on cloud and nights off duty to co incide ) and I am excited to see your picture as it gives me something to aim for. This was some of the info I gathered on 3603
NGC 3603 - The largest nebula in the Galaxy?
West of NGC 3576 is a much more distant nebula, this nebula is only the brightest part of an enormous nebulous region which probably extends over 1000 light years of space. . Although it is very obscured, the bright central part of this nebula is visible to us. This nebula may be one of the largest nebulae in the entire Galaxy (it is an example of a "giant HII region"). To astronomers in other nearby galaxies it would be a visible as a bright pink spot on the Sagittarius Arm. This picture shows the bright central region of this nebula which contains a very compact and very young cluster of stars.
This nebula is about 14000 light years behind NGC 3576.
all the best
Paul
