Thought it was about time for me to post a new image, so here is a classic favourite which I have always wanted to have a go at: The colourful Corona Australis complex.
I gathered the data for this one back in mid 2015, but have been fairly busy lately so have a bit of a processing backlog to get through at the moment
About the image:
The small Southern constellation of Corona Australis (the Southern Crown) hosts an impressive display of dust clouds and reflection nebulae centered around the star R Coronae Australis. This area is known as the Corona Australis Molecular Complex and at a distance of 430 light years it is one of the closest star-forming regions to us.
The image here frames the most colourful part of the complex, dominated by two large blue reflection nebulae. The brightest of the two is NGC6726-7 in the upper half of the field, which is illuminated by two separate young blue stars HD176386 and TY CrA. In the lower half reflection nebula IC4812 is lit by a brilliant close pair of stars; HD176269 and HD176270.
To the lower left of NGC6726-7 lies the most intricate and colourful part of the complex, surrounding R Corona Australis itself. Here several bright arcs, loops and intriguing structures can be seen. These are shaped by violent outbursts from young protostars still embedded in the nebula. Also visible are many small bright red Herbig-Haro objects; the result of plasma jets ejected from young protostars which collide with the surrounding gas and dust and cause the glowing emission.
The condensation of dark molecular clouds around R Coronae Australis makes the star heavily obscured from our view. The star itself is a very young B5 type, still migrating towards the main sequence on the H-R diagram. It is some 2 to 10 times heavier than our Sun and about 40 times more luminous. In the lower right of the image a few distant galaxies appear, heavily reddened by the obscuring dust.
Image details:
Date: 10th 22nd July and 10th 12th 17th August 2015
Exposure: LRGB: 660:105:100:95 mins, total 16 hours @ -30C
Telescope: Homebuilt 12.5" f/4 Serrurier Truss Newtonian
Camera: QSI 683wsg with Lodestar guider
Filters: Astrodon LRGB E-Series Gen 2
Taken from my observatory in Auckland, New Zealand
I recommend browsing the large images linked above. This was also a first light for my new ParaCorr and I have to say it produces very even stars across the FOV, much better than my MPCC did.
Hope you enjoy, and comments/critique is welcome as usual.
Rolf, that's wonderful. The brightest parts are very sharp indeed, while the super-faint background, while understandably gritty, shows wispy structures that are hard to photograph, in good colour. Excellent work.
Outstanding Rolf! There are not enough narrow field renditions of this neb complex and few manage to show the beautiful structure in the refl neb and 6729 as you have. The HH objects are a treat too. All up a feast for the eyes!! Nicely done!
One of the best I've seen of this area. Sharp details and great 3D affect!
Tony.
Thanks very much Tony!
Quote:
Originally Posted by Andy01
Wow!! - You didn't leave anything on the table with that one.
That's a cracker of a wee image. Sharp, detailed, great colours etc.
Congrats - very well done, sux bears and fush & chups all round.
Andy
Thanks a lot Andy, I like to work with the colours so am glad you enjoyed it.
Quote:
Originally Posted by strongmanmike
Very nice Rolf, although perhaps just a tad noisy, I gather from the sharpening, the exposure time has paid off here I recon lovely work, enjoyed that
Mike
Thank you Mike, yeah I felt it could do with some more exposure in the dark areas. I actually didn't realise the level of detail captured until I started processing it, which was long after I had moved on to other targets. So I pushed the dark areas as far as I reasonably could in order to show the faint structures. Sharpening was only applied to the brightest areas though, so I might add some more hours to it in the future to improve the dark regions.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Atmos
Wonderful rendition Rolf, need to see it on something bigger than my iPhone but it is lovely on high res
Thanks very much Colin.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Placidus
Rolf, that's wonderful. The brightest parts are very sharp indeed, while the super-faint background, while understandably gritty, shows wispy structures that are hard to photograph, in good colour. Excellent work.
What height above sea level is your observatory?
Best,
M n T
Thank you Mike and Trish, your great image of this nebula inspired me to have a go at it. As I mentioned to Mike above I didn't realise the level of detail captured until I started processing it so it could probably benefit from more exposure in the dark areas. I was surprised how good the colours came out though, even with only just over 1.5h in each RGB channel.
I'm approximately 190m above sea level. But we have moved since this data was gathered and the new location is at 240m, so am slowly moving up... .
Quote:
Originally Posted by Peter Ward
What a masterful result. Superb colour rendition and wickedly sharp details.
This one sets a very high benchmark
Thanks a lot Peter, I'm glad you liked the image. I did work for quite a while on this and I think the result was worth it.
Quote:
Originally Posted by gregbradley
That is a fantastic image Rolf. Really detailed and very 3D.
Greg.
Thanks very much Greg, I'm happy with the detail too. I had wanted to image these colourful clouds for a while.
Quote:
Originally Posted by marc4darkskies
Outstanding Rolf! There are not enough narrow field renditions of this neb complex and few manage to show the beautiful structure in the refl neb and 6729 as you have. The HH objects are a treat too. All up a feast for the eyes!! Nicely done!
Thank you Marcus, I appreciate your comment. My setup is geared for narrow field deep sky so I enjoy getting these slightly different FOVs which tend to work well on objects like this one.
The number of HH objects was a surprise to me, they are pretty much everywhere. It is a very interesting nebula complex for sure.
Quote:
Originally Posted by RickS
Beautiful rendition, Ralph. This one and Mike & Trish's are the best I've seen.
Cheers,
Rick.
Thanks very much Rick, Mike & Trish's is great indeed was certainly and inspiration for me. target.
NGC6726 and HH 100 in Corona Australis
lovely work, enjoyed that 
.
