The Dark Doodad Nebula drifts through southern skies toward the small constellation Musca, The Fly.
The dusty cosmic cloud is seen against rich starfields just south of the Coalsack Nebula and the Southern Cross.
Stretching for about 3 degrees across the center of this field of view, the Dark Doodad is punctuated near its upper tip by a yellowish globular star cluster NGC 4372.
NGC 4372 roams the halo of our Milky Way Galaxy, a background object some 20,000 light-years away and only by chance along our line of sight to the Dark Doodad.
The Dark Doodad's well-defined silhouette belongs to the Musca molecular cloud.
Not bad, but to be frank and fearless, the star colours are somewhat random.
Gamma Muscae has a B5V classification, hence like quite a few more stars in this vista should not be so remarkably blue (i.e. more white would be more accurate )
Stellar footprints are not quite as snappy as I would expect from that lovely Taka glass...but sure, seeing can be a bugger....and any reasonable data is always better than a nil result due waiting for pristine conditions .
Wow, a rather solid looking Doodad that Andy!...literally, it looks like a solid long, brown..? ..log Great star field and the glob is beeeautiful!
Mike
Thanks Mike, can't unsee that now...
Quote:
Originally Posted by CoolhandJo
The QSI did a good job on this. nice.
Cheers Paul
Quote:
Originally Posted by Peter Ward
Not bad, but to be frank and fearless, the star colours are somewhat random.
Gamma Muscae has a B5V classification, hence like quite a few more stars in this vista should not be so remarkably blue (i.e. more white would be more accurate )
Nice doodad Andy. Will have to look up exactly where this is. We're spoiled for dust right now with the southern milky overhead.
Cheers Rob, co-ords are RA center: 12h28m23s.0 DEC center: -71°42′57″
Yes, well we might be imaging again if the darn clouds would ever go away, I haven't taken a sub since May!
Quote:
Originally Posted by petershah
Let me just pick my jaw up off the floor.....Just stunning!!!
Well, that's certainly a very welcome & positive reaction, thanks very much Peter!
This is such a cool target and wonderfully presented. Although kind of ominous looking. I wasjust imagining if I were flying through space and saw this coming up ahead I’d be inclined to give a very wide berth
This is such a cool target and wonderfully presented. Although kind of ominous looking. I was just imagining if I were flying through space and saw this coming up ahead, I’d be inclined to give a very wide berth
Thanks David, I imagine a great many of our favourite targets would be quite terrifying up close! Best observed safely from afar methinks.
Quote:
Originally Posted by gregbradley
Your trademark excellent framing strikes again.
An impactful image of an object that is often somewhat disinteresting in most images.
Greg.
Cheers Greg; appreciate the nice feedback! I was tempted to create a two-panel mosaic as this framing is a touch tight, but the weather gods are currently deferring to Thor's rule this winter in Victoria.
Thanks Mark. These images, though technical, are just photographs after all, and so deserve some due consideration with framing for best composition rather than just plonking the target in the middle of the frame.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Addos
you get some really nice aura around your bright stars Andy, you'll have to share your secret one day
I'll probably get banned or something - is it a doodad because its an odd looking object, or doodad as in weird american name for private male anatomy??
Nice image Andy or this somewhat odd looking object.
Thanks Paul
Quote:
Originally Posted by RobF
I'll probably get banned or something - is it a doodad because its an odd looking object, or doodad as in weird american name for private male anatomy??
..log 
Great star field and the glob is beeeautiful! 
