B72, The Snake Nebula
See
larger images at:
- Telescope:
Takahashi FSQ-106N
4-element fluorite refractor,
4.2" f/5
- Zeiss
II German Equatorial Mount
- Santa
Barbara Instrument Group ST-8E NABG CCD camera (1530 x 1020 pixels, 9 x 9mm, monochromatic, 16 bit, 13.8 x 9.2mm array)
- CWF8
color filter wheel with Ha and IR-blocking red, green and blue dichroic filters
Exposure Information
- Date:
Thursday May 29, 2003
- Location:
Mt. Pinos, CA
- Elevation:
Approx. 8300', OAT +45F. RH=55%
- CCD
operating temperature: -20C
- Composition:
RGB 30:30:45 minutes
- All
subexposures were 2 minutes each, unbinned
- Plate
scale: 3.5 arc-sec/pixel
About
This Image
Barnard
72 is a dark nebula lying in the southern tip of Ophiuchus
between Sagittarius and Scorpius. Located between
ourselves and the rich starfields near the core of
our Milky Way galaxy, the dark nebula consists of dense clouds of gas and dust
that block the light from thousands of background stars. Subtle structures in
this image suggest regions of lower density gas and dust, and the slightly
reddened lower-left corner in this image is probably due to greater extension
of the shorter wavelengths of light passing through a diffuse gas clouds. This
image spans about 1.0 by 1.5 degrees of sky. For comparison, the full moon
spans about 0.5 degree.
If
you're wondering, RegiStar counts
21,840 stars in the full
size image. J