Corona Australis and NGC6723
Location: Warrumbungle Observatory, Australia (149 11 E, 31 16 S)
Date: Various dates during September 2012
Camera: QHY-9
Telescope: William Optics M120
Frames: Sixteen 600 second exposures in luminance and Twelve 300 second exposures for each
of RGB.
Processing: Stacked in CCDStack, balanced, curves, highlights and sharpened Photoshop SC5.
Text from APOD: Cosmic dust clouds sprawl
across a rich field of stars in this sweeping telescopic vista near the northern boundary of Corona Australis, the
Southern Crown. Probably less than 500 light-years away and effectively blocking light from more distant,
background stars in the Milky Way, the densest part of the dust cloud is about 8 light-years long. At its tip
(upper right) is a group of lovely reflection nebulae cataloged as NGC 6726, 6727, 6729, and IC 4812. A
characteristic blue color is produced as light from hot stars is reflected by the cosmic dust. The smaller
yellowish nebula (NGC 6729) surrounds young variable star R Coronae Australis. Magnificent globular star cluster
NGC 6723 is toward the upper right corner of the view. While NGC 6723 appears to be part of the group, it actually
lies nearly 30,000 light-years away, far beyond the Corona Australis dust clouds.
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