Humunculus Nebula

[Vesmaobs261]

Hi guys and gals,
I decided to push my 16 inch f/15 Cassegrain and the ASI224 camera to the limit in a bid to
see how far I could take things in regards to tracking and imaging. As a test subject I decided
on the Humunculus Nebula that surrounds the massive star Eta Carinae (bright area at the center of image).
I took a total of fifteen 1 minute SER videos at 4 seconds per frame then stitched them together in PIPP
which stabilized the jumping about of the images due to the seeing not being that great, as well as the
high magnification involved (F/40).
My Losmandy HGM200 mount's tracking was up to the task of holding the image in the field of view for
upward of seven or eight frames before I needed to recenter the target, though the mediocre seeing
made it tough going.
Frames were extracted in Irfanview with the ones showing streaked and blurry stars being culled from the list.
Then they were loaded into Registax to be stacked and sharpened. Happy with the result but could have
done better if the seeing had co-operated, which it rarely does in this area of country N.S.W. Australia.
Cheers
George

[Menno555]

Hi George

Being on the other side of Earth from you, this object is not visible for me. To be honest, I only know the Hubble captures of this of Eta Carinae.
So I dived into Google to investigate. Turns out that Homunculus Nebula is just a tiny part of the Carina Nebula. I never realized this.

And you have a mighty fine capture here! There are very few amateur captures of it it seems. I can imagine it's very hard to capture with that bright core.

Menno

[timh]

That's pretty good! 7500 light years away and must be very easy to lose in that the glow from E. Carina. Fascinating object. Tim

[Vesmaobs261]

Hi Menno,
Thanks for the compliment on the image, and yes,
that bright core is a pain when trying to image
the surrounding nebula. When I get a better night of
seeing I may try the object again but this time with
a multitude of shorter exposures that hopefully won't
make the core as bright. Will need to experiment to
try and find a suitable exposure that may do just that,
but the fun is in trying.
Cheers
George

[Vesmaobs261]

Hi Timh,
It's a facinating object alright, especially when the seeing
settles down every so often, then quite a lot of details can
be discerned when employing higher powers. It's the wealth
of detail that surrounds the star as well, as seen in the enclosed
image taken a few days before the image of the Humunculus Nebula.
The dark patch at bottom right is part of the Key Hole nebula.
Cheers
George