Designation |
NGC 2070, Tarantula Nebula,
30
Dor, Bennett 35 |
Object type |
Emission nebulae, open
clusters |
Coordinates |
05 h 39 min -
69° 06' Dorado (Dor) |
Description |
If this nebula were at the
location of the Orion Nebula (M42), it would fill the whole constellation and cast a
shadow ! It is the only extra-galactic nebula that can be seen with the
unaided eye as a faint patch of light on the eastern end of the Large
Magellanic cloud (LMC), 160.000 light years distant. The "body"
of the spider contains a very dense concentration of extremely hot giant
stars that excite the hydrogen gas around. The prominent open
cluster towards the bottom is NGC 2100. Many other young star
clusters can be seen as well as several dark clouds. The dense
star field of the Large Magellanic Cloud can be seen starting towards the
right (south). This rich extragalactic scenery covers a field of view of 75 x 52
arcminutes or approximately an area on the sky the size of four full moons.
Click here
or on the image for a higher resolution version. There is also a Ha
narrowband version in the light of hydrogen alpha.
Earlier images of the Tarantula taken with a 10"
Maksutov-Newton telescope and a 14.5"
Ritchey-Chrétien.
|
Exposure |
(R+Ha)G(B+Ha) Ha360 : R120
: G120 : B120 min @
-20°C,
all unbinned |
Camera |
SBIG STL-11000 CCD camera with
Astronomik Ha & RGB Type II filterset, selfguided |
Optics |
TEC APO 200FL refractor with TEC
field flattener @ f/8
(prime focus) |
Mount |
Astro-Physics AP1200GTO |
Software |
MaxIm DL/CCD, CCDStack, Adobe
Photoshop CS |
Location - Date - Time |
San Esteban (Chile) -
20-22Nov2006 @ 04:00
UTC |
Conditions |
Transparency 6, Seeing 6-7, Temperature
+14°C |