| NGC 2070 The Tarantula Nebula (30 Doradus) Caldwell 103, Constellation: Dorado (The Goldfish), RA 05h 39m DEC -69.1d Distance: 180,00 light years, Visual Magnitude: 8.0, Diameter: 30 x 30 arc minutes Transits at the end of twilight at 8:42pm 8th February, elevation 52 degrees, due South |
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The Tarantula Nebula resides in the Large Magellenic Cloud, a galaxy that orbits our galaxy, the Milky Way. It has an apparent magnitude of 8. Considering its distance of about 180,000 light years, this is an extremely luminous non-stellar object. Its luminosity is so great that if it were as close to Earth as the Orion Nebula, the Tarantula Nebula would cast shadows. At its core lies an extremely compact cluster of stars that produces most of the energy that makes the nebula visible. The estimated mass of the cluster is 450,000 solar masses, suggesting it will likely become a globular cluster in future. The closest supernova since the invention of the telescope, Supernova 1987A, occurred in the outskirts of the Tarantula Nebula. |
| - Imaged on 20090218 - 25.4cm 10" F/4.7 Newtonian Reflector - video fames: 300L, 100 each of RGB, no IR/UV filter at x128 integration - Bahtinov focusing mask - rough polar alignment, no moon, elevation about 50 degrees - aligned and stacked in Registax 5.0 - sharpened using Lucy Richardson deconvolution in Astra Image 3.0 SI (curve width 1.0, 3 iterations) - processed in Photoshop 7.0 (colour balanced then levels stretched and unsharp masked with the original) |