The Woolly Mammoth Nebula - LDN 673, 676A, 676B, 677, B77

[Boren]

I know... you've seen LDN 673 and friends, but never knew it's named "The Woolly Mammoth"... Well, I just couldn't help it, as the first frame was downloaded from the camera, that night under Negev Desert skies, it just jumped out of the image, the heavy, hairy, trunked image of the long extinct Woolly Mammoth... Thus it joined the other nebulae which I had the pleasure of naming - among them the (now famous) Leaping Puma, Laughing Skull, Red Hood, Seahorse, Baby Eagle, Little Iris and Jacob's Ladder (all are here too: http://www.pbase.com/boren/given_names_to_astronomical_objects).

So, back to the Wolly Mammoth - it's one of the first images I've imaged taking the R,G,B approach - without any Lum shot. I am still undecided whether it was a right path to take with this particular image, as some of the dark areas did include subtle details which would have probably been treated better using smooth LUM integrated frame. However, the night was short, and the path was taken.

I recommend viewing the high-res images posted here -

• There's a non-annotated image here: http://www.pbase.com/boren/image/158060191
• And an annotated image, pointing at some of the interesting areas in the image, here: http://www.pbase.com/boren/image/158060471

I hope you like them, and any comment is, as always, very welcome.

Cheers,

Harel

[lensman57]

Amazing work.

Regards,

A.G

[bluedandelion]

Unusual target. Nice capture and processing to bring out the dark lanes.

Ajay

[Pete Presland]

very interesting object and amazing star fields surrounding it.