This frames the dark Coal Sack nebula in Crux, the Southern Cross, here recorded as multiple dark lanes, though to the eye the Coal Sack appears as on
This frames the dark Coal Sack nebula in Crux, the Southern Cross, here recorded as multiple dark lanes, though to the eye the Coal Sack appears as one solid dark region in the Milky Way. The bright star at bottom is Acrux, or Alpha Cruxis, while the star at top is Becrux, or Beta Cruxis. Acrux is a superb double star in a telescope but it is not resolved here at this scale. The field is filled with a variety of open star clusters. Below left of Becrux is the bright and famous Jewel Box, NGC 4755. By contrast, the larger but dimmer cluster below right of Becrux is Trumpler 20. To the far left of Becrux is NGC 4852. To the left of Acrux is the small cluster NGC 4609, which I call the Coal Dust Cluster as visually it sits in the Coal Sack. Above Acrux is the large cluster NGC 4349. Two bright red nebulas appear in and around the Coal Sack. The most obvious is Rodgers-Campbell-Whiteoak (RCW) 71. The smaller, almost starlike red nebula to the right is RCW 65. While obvious on photos, these nebulas are not included in many atlases both printed and digital. The field is about 7º by º. This is a stack of 8 x 5 minute exposures with the Sharpstar 61mm EDPH III refractor at and the filter-modified Canon R at ISO 800, on the Astro-Physics AP 400 mount. No filter was used here. Shot from Australia in March 2024.
Size: 6720px × 4480px
Photo credit: © Alan Dyer / VWPics / Alamy / Afripics
License: Licensed
Model Released: No
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