This picture shows an area around Scorpius' tail, including nebula IC 4628. This is where the tail makes a hard left (east) turn and starts to curl back around. I found the center area of the nebula to appear to be heart-shaped, but there's another heart nebula already (IC 18050). Someone has dubbed this "The Prawn Nebula, but I don't know that I see the prawn!
The location of this object is always very low in the southern skies when visible from the US. The further north you are, the lower in the sky. Scorpius is a summer constellation and there's a limited part of the year where it's above the horizon. The easiest time to view it in North America is mid-summer, the further south the better. For example, it will be at its highest point at about 11:30 p.m. local time at the beginning of July, and then that same location 4 minutes earlier in the night each night later. It will barely clear the southern horizon in the northern states.
Image Details: 11x4 = 44 total minutes exposure on 4/29/2006 at HAS site near Columbus, TX, USA. 4/30 by the time this was taken around 3:30 in the morning. Canon EOS 20Da (unmodified), Takahashi TOA 130 (a 5" APO refractor), Losmandy G-11 mount. My current image processing workflow is here.
Southern Scorpius: Cat's Paw Nebula, NGC 6634
Antares area: Wider Field Pictures here
Astronomy Pictures: Dick Locke's Astrophoto Gateway page....
Copyright © 2006 Dick Locke. All Rights Reserved.
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