NGC6334 Cat's Paw Nebula

[Sam]

I took this tonight through a Canon 1000D modded, 250px, EQ6, EQMOD, PixInsight etc etc etc.

Its the Cat's Paw Nebula and it's 16 X 5mins exposures giving 1hr 20mins of total data. It ceratainly needs more so if the weather holds I'll get a bit more in the next few days.

[starnut]

That's nice

[Tom OD]

Cool, and an objecct we don't see much on this forum. Nice to see the Southern objects.

Tom.

[Yoddha]

Cool image Sam!

[steppenwolf]

Very nice, Sam - can you rotate the globe downwards a little for us so that we can have a go at this one over here as well? It really is a fascinating object and well named.

[Gina]

That's great I was going to say I hadn't seen that one before - now I know why Very interesting nebula well captured - thanks for posting it

[cloudbuster]

cat's got the cream....well done!

[Coco]

very nice

[Sam]

Thanks guys,

Steve, I'll see what I can do but we might just have to wait for plate tectonics to do its thing.

[Quatermass]

Purrrfect very nice image I was looking at this the other day on google images, great job.

[Viv]

Nice one Sam !!

Looking forward to seeing the update, after more subs added.

[Coolhandjo]

Great. The modd really shows up on this target. Well done

[todd8137]

thats great

[Sam]

This version is with another 2hrs 5mins added bring the total exposure to 3hrs 25mins which I think is closer to doing this object justice. It seems quite a complex nebula with a bit of reflection in there amongst the emission nebula. I was hoping to collect some more tonight between fronts but we've got 8/8 cloud cover at the moment. Tomorrow's forecast is for clear skies but that might be an opportunity to go for a different target. Anyway, I'm very pleased how this has turned out.

As I've had a lot more time to study this object it's quite interesting. It was discovered in 1837 by Herschel when he was in the Cape of Good Hope. It's distance is about 5500 light years so the light for this object set out on its journey a few years before the first ditch in Stonehenge was being thought about. Some of the stars being born in the vicinity of the object are ten times larger than the sun - so when they go we'll get a fantastic light show (we in the Southern Hemisphere that is:D).

This image is really the start of using my setup in the observatory. It's made astronomy so much easier and takes the effort (sometimes it seems like a chore) of lugging a heap of heavy gear outside. No issues with aligning now, it's straight into imaging and the telescope is at equilibrium.

[mgirdwood]

that is really a lovely view, looking forward to some more southern imagery

[Naemeth]

Wow, that just looks amazing! If only I could see that, unfortunately I'm in the wrong hemisphere like many people here.

[ollypenrice]

Applause. I don't know the object but you've put that right!

Thanks for a nice one,

Olly

[Sam]

Cheers folks, there's some nice weather coming over the next few days so hopefully I'll get another object.

[Mark72]

Yes, very good one!

Mark

[Gina]

That latest image is really lovely - great depth, resolution and colour

[Sam]

Thanks Gina, the extra two hours made all the difference. It really allows more depth to be brought out in the post processing. The processing is basically dynamic background extraction in PixInsight followed by levels and curves to bring out the detail. So not much processing really. I tend to find the better that the input data is the less you have to do. Though the cold settled air between fronts makes life a lot easier - albeit cold!

[Gina]

I agree - there's no substitute for plenty of good data. Also agree about cold settled air.