Hi All,

 

This is a fairly wide-field image, just short of 10 hours, of the Tarantula Nebula against the background of the LMC. I was surprised at the extent of dust visible from a distance of 160,000 light-years.  At full res, many of the hollowed-out HII swirls resemble the Rosette nebula, with star clusters buried in their cores.

 

http://www.astrobin.com/237180/0/

 

Imaged in January, 2015 at Daniel Verschatse’s Hacienda Los Andes, near Cerro Tololo in Chile, with my FSQ-85 and QSI583wsg and Lodestar on Daniel’s Mach 1.  After many distractions and delays, finally processed now as an LHaRGB.  Click on the image for medium-res, and the X icon in the upper right corner of that one for full-res.

 

Comments and suggestions always welcome. Thanks for looking,

 

Bob