The Carina Nebula (ngc3372)

Not too bad for only 15mins worth of data. Definitely going to add to this one down the track. Will look really good then, with an hour or two's data to add. NGC3372, the Carina Nebula, a complex of dust and gas clouds lying around 7500ly away from Earth. Over 300ly across, this nebula is much larger and far more brighter than the so called "Great" Orion Nebula, both in actual physical dimensions and in apparent size on the sky. Unfortunately, it's barely visible from the Northern Hemisphere as you have to be south of 19N to really see it. You can see it from the observatories on top of Mauna Kea, on the Big Island of Hawaii, but it's still low down near the horizon. Home to a number of large open clusters, it's also the home to two of the brightest stars in the Galaxy, WR25 (HD93162) and the famous eta Carina (both members of Trumpler 16). eta Carina is most famous for its Great Eruption, which peaked around 1843, when the stars was the second brightest in the sky, surpassed only by Sirius. At the time, the star expelled upwards of 20-25 solar masses of material in what is known as a "supernova imposter" eruption. Basically, a giant hiccup, where the star shines as brightly as a normal supernova explosion (in this case 50 million solar luminosities) and expels a large amount of mass without destroying itself. These eruptions are now known to be precursors to the actual supernova of the star, so astronomers are keeping a close eye on eta. Given the size of the star, it will most likely go as a pair instability hypernova, far outshining a normal supernova explosion and most likely leaving no remnant, such as a neutron star or black hole. The star will completely obliterate itself in the explosion. That will substantially change the form of the nebula surrounding the star, apart from being exceedingly bright in the night sky and visible of a daytime. Anyway, this image was taken on t68 at the Bathurst Observatory (BAT), iTelescope Network. 15x60sec subs.
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