Star rich regions: Barnard 86, 104 and Trumpler 31

[Martin Meredith]

Here are a few shots from last night at quite low declinations in star-rich regions. 

The first is Barnard 104, a dark nebula in Scutum that looks like the number 7 or a tick depending on the orientation. I set it off to one side as I like the contrast with the bright, warm star off to one side. I might be wrong but I think that is a type G0 mag 4.2 Beta Scuti. The filter details are given on the shot. I find that the white control has to be quite close to the black point for dark nebulae.

 

Next, at Dec -27, and with an altitude at the time of about 15 degrees, is Barnard 86, the so-called Ink Spot (although to me it is an upturned hat like the cover of the Blue Nile album of the same name). This is actually the same object I have for my avatar picture, but updated for colour. The cluster of blue-ish stars is NGC 6420. I've always like the practically uncountable number of stars in this image. 

  

 

Finally (the scope is calling), here is what I think is Trumpler 31 in Sagittarius, even lower at a Dec of -28 and around 13 degrees when I observed it. I really don't know if this is the right spot or whether the cluster refers to the brighter foreground stars or the dense cloud behind it, but I really enjoyed finding this (it was a random end the evening's observing being just a short hop from Barnard 86.

 

cheers

 

Martin

 

 

Edited August 19, 2020 by Martin Meredith

[RobertI]

Those dark nebula are superb, especially the ink spot - very striking. The cluster is nice with some nice colouring, the LRGB is working superbly - to me then cluster has the shape of a couple of castellations (if that’s the right word) - ie: a square zigzag. 
 

Hats is a nice album by the way, I have it myself. 👍

[Martin Meredith]

Thanks Rob. I agree, the Trumpler looks like the top of a castle wall. its quite unusual to see rectangular stellar patterns though the eye-brain is a wonderful thing. 

Yes, the LRGB is now working to my satisfaction and remains histogram-free so there is no need to spend observing time fiddling around. It isn't that that is holding up the next release of the software, more the fact that I can't stop myself tinkering/refactoring. I really must try to get it finalised. This version supports the Lodestar natively as well as the SX filter wheel, so LRGB is just a single keypress, giving plenty of time to watch the image building up. I need to make the support for the filter wheel more robust though, and the aim is to support the Ultrastar too.

Martin

[RobertI]

The software looks like it’s working superbly - when I do some EV again I shall have another bash at installing (might be needing a new laptop soon - mine has almost reached its 10th anniversary! 😯)

[Mike JW]

Hi Martin, great to see the shots. Doing them in colour enhances the dark nebulae. It tempts me to head down the colour route at some point. Mike