M24, a strange Messier...

[ollypenrice]

I've wanted to image this for ages, partly in order to sort out where it starts and finishes. I think I understand it now! There are also a couple of Barnards in here, though SkyMap lists them as B33 and B32, which can't be right, since B33 is the Horsey. What am I missing, here?

So I put our beloved Tak FSQ85 with reducer back on the mount and shot 7X10 minutes per colour and got this. That's F3.9 for you. Love it! Camera was our Atik 4000 mono.

Hard to see how old Charlie would have mistaken this for a comet. The Sagittarius Star Cloud, M24, is the lozenge shaped star cloud lying on a diagonal from upper left to lower right.

Can't decide for tonight between trying an Ha layer or extending the imqge southwards to pull in a Sharpless just below this. Meanwhile exciting things are still going on in the observatory next door. Something very scary and big is slurping up photons, that much I can reveal...

Olly

[Scott]

ummm......wow

[Keiran]

Thats really nice Olly, love widefield, and there is so much to look at in this

[Tinker1947]

That's a awesome image, you have there.....

[JamesF]

Having spent some time trying (and failing) to find this visually recently, this image is very enlightening. Seeing it now I really wonder what Messier (or whoever reported it to him) thought they were seeing. In your image I read it as a region with a slightly greater density of blue-white stars when compared to the area around it. I guess that might qualify it as a "cluster", but it's not exactly what I'd have in mind if someone described it as such. Makes it quite obvious to me why I couldn't find it now though. I could quite easily have looked straight at that and not realised I was seeing anything particularly unusual.

Thanks for posting this one, Olly.

James

[michael.h.f.wilkinson]

Nice image again, Olly. M24 is quite curious visually. Some nights it really stands out, others it is much less clear, probably due to its diffuse boundaries. My best sighting so far was from Sydney, Australia, where it was nearly overhead.

[Tom OD]

Another good image Olly. Looking forward to seeing this in all its glory. I was messing about with this region a few months ago. I took a few Lum subs as the moon was coming up just to see where it extends to. Here they are attached, each one is a single 10min sub. Your 4000 and F/3.9 FOV is close to the F/5 530mm and 11000 chip. You more or less have all of the Sharpless object.

Funny too how M45 was mistaken for a Comet(!) by Mr Messier.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/28192200@N02/7589961518/in/photostream

and a bit lower to see the Sharpless part

http://www.flickr.com/photos/28192200@N02/7589951704/in/photostream

[HnrKS]

OMG! Great photo!

[WaveSoarer]

Great image. You could be lost in it for ages.

[symesie04]

Speechless as always Olly, stunning. Really intrigued by the goings on next door.

[farunj]

Wow!! That's stunning!!

[squeaky]

Stunning.

As always.

[Zul]

Faaaaaantastic!

[Gina]

This is my shot of it under seriously difficult conditions. Part of a wide-field image of the whole region taken with 55mm f1.8 lens at f2.8.

[Willarnold]

Fantastic image Olly !

[ollypenrice]

Thanks all. Now then, time to fess up! Dozy beggar that I am, I slept through the filter change on the second panel last night so I have no green but an AWFUL lot of blue! Curses, but I should be able to get it tonight. It does look interesting.

Olly