NGC 6357 The lobster Nebula

NGC 6357 The lobster nebula

 

After 3 months of constant cloud cover / rain in Melbourne Australia, I finally managed to gather enough data to process this wonderful celestial object.

 

This is an SHO image with RGB stars. This is a crop of the wide filed image I took with my 430mm refractor as I found it more interesting to look at it this way.

There are some wonderfull details in the middle of this nebula with what looks like a Koala reaching out for a star. Everyone I showed this image to seems to find a different animal in there... snakes, crabs, lobster of course!

 

This nebula is on the faint side with Ha and Sii being the predominant emission and Oiii being highly concentrated in the middle of the nebula, shown by the blue hue in this image.

 

NGC 6357, The lobster Nebula also know as War and Peace Nebula is a diffuse nebula located in the constellation of Scorpius. It includes an open cluster Pismis 24 made out of massive stars, the biggest one approaching 300 solar masses!

 

Integration:

18h 15'

 

Hi res and acquisition details: www.astrobin.com/3sm66p/

Done