Tarantula Nebula (Dorado 30).

While away on my dark sky trip I also managed to capture a few light frames of the Tarantula nebula.

Sadly these were heavily impacted by clouds and a strong lunar presence.
I did not manage nearly as many subs as I would have liked and as a result I have plenty of noise in the image which was a bugger to process out.
I could not get rid of it all and it shows in the image.

The following interesting information is taken from Wikipedia:

The Tarantula Nebula has an apparent magnitude of 8. Considering its distance of about 49 kpc (160,000 light-years), this is an extremely luminous non-stellar object. Its luminosity is so great that if it were as close to Earth as the Orion Nebula, the Tarantula Nebula would cast shadows. In fact it is the most active starburst region known in the Local Group of galaxies. It is also one of the largest such regions in the Local Group with an estimated diameter of 200 pc. The nebula resides on the leading edge of the LMC where ram pressure stripping, and the compression of the interstellar medium likely resulting from this, is at a maximum.

So on to the details of the capture.

21 X 25 second exposures.
22 dark frames.
21 flat frames
20 Bias frames.
ISO 1600
Canon 1200D
Skywatcher 102mm scope.

I took slightly shorter exposures than usual so as to minimize any star trailing or other defects in the exposures.
I also opted for a higher ISO since this was a dark sky site and there is 0% light pollution.
The only real gradient of the night was the white glow cast by the moon, which on this occasion was slightly less than half full!
I really hope I can return there on a weekend with clear skies and no moon to interfere with imaging.

And that brings us to the image.
Enjoy!

Took a dark sky trip to Underberg in the Drakensberg mountains.
What a spectacular place with stunning mountain views and a river on our doorstep, pure bliss!

Below are two images of the site.
In the first I have climbed up the side of the hill a bit to get the image.
In the image is my wife Trish sitting on the rocks overlooking the river, in the background is the cottage where we were staying.
The second image is the view from directly behind me.

The weather was not committed to the project and had ideas of it's own and that was cloud and rain!
My main target for this trip was M42, I did get a brief glimpse of M42 early Sunday morning at about 4AM.
The clouds had parted just enough for me to view the nebula with the 8" scope, this lasted for about 40 minutes and a thick mist rolled in rendering the stars invisible!
On Sunday night some partially clear skies presented themselves and out came the imaging equipment and Dob.
Visually I managed Saturn that was spectacular with a VERY clear Cassini division and some banding on the planet surface!
I also took in several clusters in Scorpius during a cat and mouse game with the clouds.
I tried for Omega Centauri and had trouble locating it in among all the clouds that were obscuring it and a lot of the stars around it.
Eventually I found it in a gap in the clouds and was disappointed with the view.
While still very large and bright the higher thin cloud was dimming the view considerably.


 So at this point I turned to the Skywatcher 102 and tried for some AP.
The gaps in between clouds was enough for me to grab some light frames on NGC 104 better known as TUC 47.
I had to throw away many frames as they contained the dreaded clouds!

The details for the shoot as follows:

Light frames 55 X 25 second exposures each.
Dark frames 38 X 25 seconds each.
Flat frames 31.
Bias frames 20.
ISO 1600.
I used a higher ISO as this is a dark sky site.
Skywatcher 102mm scope.
Canon 1200D.

Also captured in the image is the globular cluster NGC 121.

While doing the captures I went back the Dob for some more visual.
Not even twenty minutes later and a heavy dew starts to settle.
Not wanting a soaked Dob or AP kit I took the Dob indoors and put up a large beach umbrella to just cover the Skywatcher and AP equipment enough so as to prevent any dew getting onto it.

Soon enough the clouds closed up the skies and that was the end of a dark sky session.
The moon was a strong contender and shone bright and fierce under 0% light pollution.
That coupled with more cloud than sky put a damper on the evening but there will always be a next time and the views I managed were worth it.