Observation by Richard Francis: Dust clouds in Aries, or a drunken drago...

Uploaded by

Richard Francis

Observer

Richard Francis

Observed

2021 Dec 04 - 15:09

Uploaded

2024 Jun 09 - 15:12

Objects

LBN 762

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Constellation

Aries

Field centre

RA: 02^h59^m
Dec: +17°10'
Position angle: +179°44'

Field size

0°58' × 1°03'

Equipment

Officina Stellare U-CRC360
Paramount MEII
FLI Kepler 4040

Exposure

27*300s Lum, 26*300s each of RGB

Location

La Romieu, SW France

Target name

LBN 762

Title

Dust clouds in Aries, or a drunken dragon?

About this image

After I first collected the data for this image I did a first check and became pessimistic that there was anything there. Individual frames hardly showed any interesting signal. That was about two and a half years ago. But recently I've been trying to clear the back catalogue and decided to try it anyway.

It remains a bit marginal, and sensor calibration data left artefacts, some of which had to be cropped out. The camera is currently in storage so acquiring more cal data would not be easy. So here it is.

The nebula is often called the Drunken Dragon Nebula – it's hard to see why but some images with a larger field of view, and this same inverted orientation, could perhaps look like a dragon (especially after a few drinks, which might help understand the name). With this interpretation, this is the dragon's head.

In reality it's an interstellar cloud of dust which is lit up by nearby stars. Like other dust clouds it seems there are stars being born within the clouds.

Files associated with this observation

ID-2021-17_LBN_762_Rev1.jpg (1.5 MB)

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Jonathon Elliott, Callum Potter, Andy Wilson

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