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The Details
Object
NGC 6357 in Scorpius
Optics
Astro-Physics 160 EDF @ f/5.7
Platform
Astro-Physics 1200 GTO
Camera
SBIG STL-11000M
Filters
Tru-Balance 6nm Hydrogen Alpha filter
Date
20 July 2006
Location
Mount Wilson Observatory - Mount Wilson, CA
Exposure
Ha 9 x 1800 sec, 1x1 bin
Software
Maxim DL/CCD, Registar, Photoshop CS
Orientation
Field of View: 02°11’ x 01°27’ centered on RA 17h24m45s
DEC -34 °08’09” (2000.0) . North angle 355.3 °; east 90° CCW from north.
Notes
NGC 6357 is a very large, faint emission nebula located in the "stinger" area of the constellation Scorpius. Because it never gets very high above the horizon in the continental US it's a fairly tough object for American astro-imagers. One of my favorite H-alpha targets, NGC 6357 was discovered by John Herschel in 1837 from the Cape of Good Hope, Africa. Lying approximately in the plane of the Milky Way galaxy some 5500 light years from Earth, light from this object is significantly extincted in the blue wavelengths because of the vast amount of intervening galactic dust between us and it. Its stellar nursery of bright blue O-type stars is therefore substantially muted in all but the red wavelengths, with the overall nebula taking on a deep ruddy hue in color images.

 

 

 

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