SUNSET: 
0
Photographer:
Jon Greif
Location of Photo:
Siding Springs Observatory, Coonabarabran, NSW, Australia
Date/Time of photo:
October 29, 2021, at 10:00 pm local time
Equipment:
Planewave 20 inch TDK reflecting telescope and Planewave Monochrome Imaging System with RGB filters.
Description:
The Tarantula Nebula (also known as 30 Doradus and NGC 2070) is a Hydrogen emitting region in the Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC), a prominent feature of the Southern Milky Way. The data for this image was provided to me by Dr. Christian Sasse, lead astronomer for iTelescope.net, and consists of 16 two-minute subs each of red, blue and green filter data (total integration time = 1.6 hours) from a 20 inch Planewave TDK reflecting telescope and imaging platform at the Siding Springs Observatory in NSW, Australia. Considering its distance of about 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 visible shadows. It is also one of the largest H II regions in the Local Group of galaxies with an estimated diameter of around 700 to 1000 light years. Processing was in Pixinsight 1.8.8, and the stars were greatly thinned out with StarExterminator to emphasize the nebulosity.
