Westerlund Nebula
Westerlund Nebula: NGC 3247, located about 3 degrees northwest of Eta Carina, was discovered by John Herschel, who described it as a peculiar object of stars embedded in a nebulosity. Since his description was rather corse there was later quite some confusion about the identy of the object.
In the 1960s it became clear that the nebula is excited by a very compact group of stars at the center, called Westerlund 2. Therefore it is proposed that the nebula should bear the common name Westerlund Nebula (description and proposal by Auke Slotegraaf).
For a widefield image of the region click here.
The image was taken at the observatory of IAS at Hakos Farm in Namibia.
Object |
Westerlund Nebula |
|---|---|
Catagory |
IAS Hakos, Namibia |
Designation |
NGC 3247 |
Constellation |
Carina |
Optics |
Keller 20 inch Cassegrain f/3 in corrected primary focus |
Camera |
SBIG STL-11000M with internal CFW 5 |
Exposure |
3 x 10min Baader H-alpha filter, 3 x 5min each Baader RGB filterset. Maxim DL for image acquisition |
Calibration |
Dark- and Flat Frame |
|---|---|
Guiding |
StarlightXpress Lodestar on Schneider OAG, Maxim DL as Guiding Software |
Mount |
Liebscher GEM |
Processing |
Maxim DL5, Photoshop,PixInsight. Colour Code L/H-alpha,R/H-alpha,GB |
Location, Date |
IAS-Hakos, Namibia - 16 Apr 2012 |
Remark |
