Caldwell 68 Corona Australis (Dark Molecular Cloud)

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Caldwell 68 Corona Australis (Dark Molecular Cloud)

[Public Domain] 11 Sep 2017 Dylan O'Donnell
CATEGORY : Astrophotography
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Still my favourite target in the night sky, the weird area around Caldwell 68 still gives me pause. Unlike the showy, energetic nebulae that typically glow in pinks and reds, this dark nebula hangs in space like a shroud trying to hide it’s binary stellar infants. Globular cluster NGC6723 also floats nearby but off into the distance, and the haze cloaks the stars behind giving a real sense of depth and perspective. I gave it a good crack this year, but this time with the Celestron RASA using 82 x 30s mono broadband exposures and 37 x 30s RGB for a total of just under 1 hour… which in astro imaging time is very very little, though it took me 2 nights to collect the data between my tiny window of the sky fenceline and my roofline!

Earlier today I also snapped this beautiful double coronal loop on the sun which was spectacular!

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