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Great Nebula in Carina Bi Colour 2015

Great Nebula in Carina

 

This is a bi-colour image of one of the largest diffuse nebulae in our skies. It is a spectacular object that is about four times as large and even brighter than the famous Orion Nebula. It is one of my favourite objects in the Southern Hemisphere. Near the centre of the image you will see a very bright hypergiant star - Eta Carinae. Its luminosity is about four million times that of the Sun. Within the large bright nebula is a much smaller feature, immediately surrounding Eta Carinae itself. This small nebula is known as the Homunculus Nebula. If you look carefully, you can see that this star is not round. This happened in enormous outburst in 1841.

 

This was imaged under the great light dome of Melbourne, Australia

 

Telescope:250 mm, F9 Ritchey-Chrétien configuration

Mount:Astro-Physics AP-900 Mount

Camera:SBIG STL-11000 CCD (-20 C)

Image scale 0.83"/pix

Processing:CCDStack and Photoshop

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Uploaded on April 15, 2015