The Tarantula Nebula is more than a thousand light-years in diameter, a giant star forming region within nearby satellite galaxy the Large Magellanic Cloud. About 180 thousand light-years away, it's the largest, most violent star forming region known in the whole Local Group of galaxies. Within the Tarantula (NGC 2070), intense radiation, stellar winds and supernova shocks from the central young cluster of massive stars, cataloged as R136, energize the nebular glow and shape the spidery filaments. Were the Tarantula Nebula closer, say 1,500 light-years distant like the local star forming Orion Nebula, it would take up half the sky! (Apod)
It's been a few months since my last image. I had my Tak NJP mount completely stripped down & powder coated in nice Apollo 11 colours.
Spend a couple of nights dialing back in my mount & collimating the 'scope after all the recent mods.
Some of the powder coated surfaces were causing a couple of internal locknuts to slip, so PA and guiding were temporarily affected, but I'm 99% on top of that now.
Chose a target that I could image in a single night, and the biggest, brightest option here in Australia at this time of year was NGC 2070.
This presentation & colour palette was inspired by the workflow of Josep Drudis using just Ha & O3 and adding back the RGB stars.
(I've always been a big fan of Josep's work).
12x 10min Ha
15x 10min O3
8x 2min R,G & B (stars)
Processed with Astro Pixel Processor, PS CC2019 & Topaz
Considering it was taken from my light polluted suburban backyard in Melbourne over a single night, I'm pretty happy with the result!
C&C welcome.
Edited by Andy01, 20 September 2019 - 11:02 PM.