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Tarantula Nebula: The Tarantula Nebula is a huge (more on that later) star-forming region in the Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC), an irregular dwarf galaxy orbiting our Milky Way (I have also uploaded a photo I took years ago of the entire LMC, showing the Tarantula Nebula toward the upper left of the image). Yes, this nebula is not even in our galaxy, and yet is is so huge that it fills the full-frame field of view on my camera! This nebula is the largest and most complex star forming region that can be photographed by amateurs. The spidery part of the nebula is about 1,000 light-years across; the nebula is about 160,000 light years from us. Were it placed at the distance of Milky Way's Orion Nebula (a well-known huge star-forming region in the Milky Way which is only 1,500 light-years from us, and the nearest stellar nursery to Earth; we see it as Orion's sword), it would cover about 30 degrees of the sky (about equal to 60 full moons), and it's so bright it would cast shadows! The arms of the Tarantula nebula surround NGC 2070, a star cluster that contains some of the brightest, most massive stars known (most visible in the center of the nebula), and is estimated to have a mass 450,000 times that of our sun.
This image contains over 36 hours of light-frame data.
Telescope: RC Optical Systems 14.5 inch Ritchey–Chrétien carbon fiber truss telescope, with ion-milled optics
Camera: SBIG STL11000M with internal color filter wheel (Astrodon Type II filter set)
Mount: Bisque Paramount ME German Equatorial Mount.
Enjoy!
Mark
http://www.de-regt.com/Astronomy/Tarantula.65.jpg
http://www.de-regt.com/Astronomy/LMC.40.jpg
Edited on Nov 19, 2015 at 04:05 PM · View previous versions
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