NGC6188 The Dragons of Ara

[kiwiapple]

We have been enjoying several nights of clear skies the past week or so, so I've set my monochrome rig to photograph one of my favourite nebulae in the winter sky, the fighting dragons of Ara. I decided to try something a bit complex--I set my ASIAIR to shoot through broadband filters (RGB) at a gain of 76, and through narrowband filters (Ha, Sii and Oiii) at a gain of 139 on the first night to let me capture the stars separately from the nebulosity. But what I didn't realise until the next morning was that I had set things up a bit wrong, so I shot everything at gain 76 so my HSO images were a tad dark. Nevermind, I had four more nights of time to fix that and in the end I collected 26-1/2 hours of HSO data and 2 hours of RGB to create this final image. I'm pretty happy with it!

 

[JimFox]

One day I will capture this.... maybe....

Right now, I am battling clouds. I go back and forth from California to Colorado, and when I am in Colorado the skies in California are clear and when I am California the skies in Colorado are clear. So it's great that you are getting some clear skies! and what a beautiful scene!

Dragons of Ara are one of my favorites from the Southern Hemisphere. What's the OIII object in the lower right? that looks super cool with what looks like exploding waves of OIII radiating away from it.

 

[Comet Hunter]

Nicely done, where are you located to be able to capture this?

 

[kiwiapple]

One day I will capture this.... maybe....

Right now, I am battling clouds. I go back and forth from California to Colorado, and when I am in Colorado the skies in California are clear and when I am California the skies in Colorado are clear. So it's great that you are getting some clear skies! and what a beautiful scene!

Dragons of Ara are one of my favorites from the Southern Hemisphere. What's the OIII object in the lower right? that looks super cool with what looks like exploding waves of OIII radiating away from it.

Thanks--I was happy to have have five nights in a row of clear skies, something that is a real gift to an astrophotographer! The item at lower right is known as the "Dragon's Egg Nebula", NGC6164.

 

[kiwiapple]

Nicely done, where are you located to be able to capture this?

Thank you--I'm in Oamaru, New Zealand.

 

[Mike Lewis]

Another fantastic Southern Sky target that all of us up north can only dream about. Lovely work, those extra hours have really made something special. Love it. Like Jim I hope somehow someday to have a crack at this target. Problem is, if I was down in the South there are SO many deserving objects to try to image it would be hard to get all the special ones in a limited time visit. But this one IS on my short list, precisely because of images posted like this one


ML