Proxima Centauri and Eta Carina.

[johnh]

SPX350, Mintron12V6, Astrodon filters.

Proxima Centauri - red star left of centre in image below is of course the closest star to the Sun at 4.243 lyrs away, its mag is 11.05 absol mag 15.49, temp 3042K, 1.5x Jupiter width, 4.85bn yrs old, mass 12.3% that of the Sun. Red Dwarfs are the commonest stars in the Galaxy apparently and big IR emitters, 2 images R/G/B and IR742/G/B - the IR image being the brighter. Proxima is 2.2 degrees away from Alpha Centauri its companion.

Eta Carina star in the big nebula is mag 4.47 absol mag -5.6 and is a massive 8,000 lyrs away and one of the largest mass stars at 100-150 solar masses. In 1843 it erupted but did not go supernova and reached mag -0.8 and was recorded by aborigines as the only record of its outburst, another minor outburst in 1998/9 with a doubling of brightness occurred. This star has a binary companion and is expected to go Hypernova in the next million years! The images show dust clouds either side of the star from the 1843 outburst with an outer sshell shown with the Ha filter.

Proxima - RGB+IRGB

F12.7 - 100 x each filter 2.56 sec exposure.

Eta Carina - Ha+R/RGB

F19.5 - 1000 x rgb each at 0.24sec exposure, 350 x Ha at 2.56sec exposure.

F30.2 - 2000 x red, 500 x blue + green at 0.32sec exposure, 700 x Ha at 2.56sec exposure.

Thanks, John.

[lukebl]

Cool images.

I've wanted to see Proxima since I read about it when I was a kid. One day....

[Stu]

Great images John, especially like no. 2.

Which star is Proxima, the very faint one just, left of centre or the much brighter one?

[johnh]

Thanks Luke and Stu, just had to give these a go if only once, Proxima is the brightest star in the image left of centre.

Here is the red stack and the IR stack to show the difference, some stars are really big IR producers.

Image1-Red

Image2-IR742nm

John.

[eliot]

Great shots. I can feel the energy in the nebula.

[EdF_uk]

Well done. Nice shots.

Ed