Thingo called Doodad in Musca in HDR

[avandonk]

Did this image of the Thingo in Musca while waiting for Scorpio to rise. Sometimes the absence of any light can be interesting. Gradients were a bit of a problem as object was lowish and in the direction of the light pollution.

Large image 1.4MB
http://members.optusnet.com.au/~avandonk1/thingo.jpg

Canon 5DH, Canon 300MM F2.8L at f/2.8. Fridge at -10C. Six doublings of exposure from 15s at 200ISO to 4min at 800ISO. Converted from raw to tiff and corrected for flats with ImagesPlus. Stacked and aligned with Registar. EasyHDR used to generate and LDR image from this data.

Feel free to comment on colour etc as I am still trying to figure all this out.

Bert

[Omaroo (Chris Malikoff)]

It's really a "doodad" isn't it Bert?

Nicely done. I've been thinking about taking a few snaps of it myself sometime.

[avandonk]

I called it thingo since I could not remember doodad. Thanks for reminding me. Whatever it is called it is a very dark lane of dust.

Bert

[erick (Eric)]

Bert that's great and very topical. It's marked on the Sky & Telescope's Pocket Sky Atlas as the "Dark Doodad".

http://www.austskyandtel.com.au/Pocket_Sky_Atlas.htm

So I thought I'd have a search for it under dark skies at Snake Valley last weekend. And there it was! Not as distinctive as in your excellent photo, but a binocular object.

Nicely framed image, Bert. I love the way it starts beside globular cluster NGC 4372 and tracks up into the main Musca stars.

[Tamtarn]

It is an interesting part of the sky Bert. We posted this deeper view of the cluster and doodad last week.

David

[avandonk]

Very nice image Dave. My wide field only gives a vague impression of the blue stars in the cluster. Your colour looks to be more natural as well.

It just shows the more images, the better we are informed. No one has a monopoly on imaging even Hubble!

Bert

[Ric]

Great capture Bert, I always like seeing the Doodad.

It always reminds me of a piece of space that has been torn open.

Cheers

[avandonk]

Here is exactly the same area and size excised from the widefield with Registar as your image.

Bert

[Tamtarn]

Thanks Bert, it's good to see images in different perspectives.

Your widefield image shows the full size of the doodad,in relation to the position of the cluster.

[tornado33]

A nice dark nebula there, its quite big too by the look of it.
Scott

[goober (Doug)]

Originally Posted by avandonk

Did this image of the Thingo in Musca while waiting for Scorpio to rise. Sometimes the absence of any light can be interesting.

Nice image of the Dark Doodad! I thought I could make this out naked eye over the weekend, but couldn't convince myself I was seeing it. Sometimes knowing it's there fools you into thinking you can see it. It was fantastic with 10x50 binoculars, it just tails off from the faint globular 4372 (I think ... get them mixed up).