Tarantula Nebula – The Amazing Sky

March 24, 2014

Our Neighbour Galaxy, the Large Magellanic Cloud

One of our nearest galactic neighbours contains an astonishing collection of nebulas and star clusters.

This is the money shot — top of my list for targets on this trip to Australia. This is the Large Magellanic Cloud, a satellite galaxy of our Milky Way. At “just” 160,000 light years away, the LMC is in our galactic backyard. Being so close, even the small 77mm telescope I used to take this image resolves numerous nebulas, star clusters, and a mass of individual stars. The image actually looks “noisy” from being filled with so many stars.

I’ve oriented and framed the Cloud to take in most of its main structure and objects. One can spend many nights just visually exploring all that the LMC contains. It alone is worth the trip to the southern hemisphere.

At left is the massive Tarantula Nebula, a.k.a. NGC 2070. At upper right is the LMC’s second best nebula, the often overlooked NGC 1763, also known as the LMC Lagoon. In between are many other magenta and cyan tinted nebulas.

I’ve shot this object several times but this is my best shot so far I think, and my first with this optical system in several years.

I used a Borg 77mm aperture “astrograph,” a little refractor telescope optimized for imaging. It is essentially a 330mm f/4 telephoto lens, but one that is tack sharp across the entire field, far outperforming any camera telephoto lens.

This shot is a stack of six 10-minute exposures at ISO 800 with the filter-modified Canon 5D MkII camera. The autoguider worked perfectly. And yet, I shot this in clear breaks between bands of clouds moving though last night. The night was humid but when the sky was clear it was very clear.

Next target when skies permit: the Vela Supernova Remnant.

December 10, 2012December 10, 2012

In the Lair of the Tarantula Nebula

This is one of the most spectacular areas of the southern sky, around the lair of the Tarantula Nebula.

I shot this close up of the Large Magellanic Cloud last night, December 10, 2012 to frame the most interesting part of the LMC, the massive Tarantula Nebula. This star-forming region is much larger than any in our Milky Way, yet exists in a small dwarf galaxy that is a satellite of our Milky Way. But tidal forces from our Milky Way are torturing the Magellanic Clouds and stirring up massive amounts of star formation. If the Tarantula were as close to us as is the Orion Nebula some 1500 light years from us, the Tarantula would cover 30° of sky and cast shadows at night. Good thing perhaps that the wicked Tarantula is 160,000 light years away.

I shot this with my 105mm apo refractor. It’s a stack of 5 x 12 minute guided exposures, using the filter-modified Canon 5D MkII camera.

This is a wonderful region of sky to explore with any telescope. I had a great look at it through my 10-inch Dobsonian reflector last night. Well worth the trip to the southern hemisphere to see!

December 5, 2012December 5, 2012

Depth of Detail in the Large Magellanic Cloud

If this was the only unique object in the southern sky that we couldn’t see from up North, then it would still be worth travelling south of the equator to see the southern sky.

This is the Large Magellanic Cloud, a satellite galaxy to our Milky Way. Being “just” 160,000 light years away (as opposed to millions of light years for most galaxies) this object is large (it fills the field of binoculars) and is rich in detail. Just look at all the pinkish nebulas dotting its ragged structure. The biggest is near the bottom, the massive Tarantula Nebula. Through a telescope there is so much to see in this object it takes careful comparisons with charts and atlases over several nights just to figure out what all the nebulas and clusters are in the eyepiece. It is a deep-sky observer’s dream object. While several professional astronomers have made their careers studying just the Magellanic Clouds.

Once classed as an irregular, ragged galaxy, the “LMC” is now thought of as a barred spiral. I think this photo suggests the two spiral arms coming off the top and bottom of the central elongated bar.

I shot this last night, under a perfect night of viewing in Coonabarabran, Australia, using a 135mm telephoto lens. The field is similar to what you see in binoculars though the long exposure (this is a stack of ten 5-minute tracked exposures) brings out more detail than the eye can see. Compare this wide view with a higher magnification shot I took two years ago from the same location. Both are good but I like this wider view better as it sets this big object into the celestial frame of the surrounding night sky.

February 21, 2011February 21, 2011

The Wonder-filled Large Magellanic Cloud

It occupies only a binocular field or two in the sky but … Wow! What a field it is! This is one of the objects that makes a trip to the southern hemisphere for astronomy worth the trek alone. This satellite galaxy of our Milky Way is visible only from south of the equator. It contains so many clusters and nebulas, many in the same telescope field, that just sorting out what you are looking at takes a good star atlas (most don’t plot this region well). This is one of my best shots of the “LMC,” taken on my December Oz trip. It is with the Borg 77mm f/4 astrographic lens/telescope and the filter-modified Canon 5D MkII, that picks up much more red nebulosity (that emits deep red wavelengths) that stock cameras don’t record well.

Even so, I’m always amazed at how so many nebulas in the LMC, and in its smaller counterpart, the nearby Small Magellanic Cloud, record as magenta or cyan, rather than deep red. The most prominent object is the Tarantula Nebula at left of centre. It is an amazing sight in any telescope, especially with a nebula filter.

This is a stack of five 7-minute exposures at ISO 800, with the scope on the AP 400 mount and guided with the SG-4 autoguider. This is a single image, framed to take in all the best stuff of the LMC. But to really get it all in with any detail requires a multi-panel mosaic. I’ve done those on previous trips and was hoping to re-do one on this last trip, with the better, sharper camera, the 5D MkII, and with the LMC higher in the sky than on earlier trips. But the lack of clear nights curtailed my plans.

But I’m happy with this one. Nice and sharp and with oodles of nebulosity. But one can never exhaust what this object has to offer, both for imaging and for just looking with the eyepiece. So there’s always next time!