The Carina Nebula is one of the amazing highlights of the Southern Sky. It’s really bright and huge and can be seen easily with the naked eye.
When I arrived at Kiripotib and got ready for my first night of imaging, this was the object I started out with. Also because it would be very low on the horizon already at the start of darkness and would be getting even lower over the coming days.
The first 2 days I spent the first hours imaging this beautiful nebula.
Carina Nebula
The Carina Nebula is four times bigger and it is brighter than the Orion Nebula, but is not as well known due to the fact it is only visible from the Southern Hemisphere.
The large nebula encompasses several open star clusters, and is in fact home to the brightest star in our Milky Way; WR25 inside Trumpler 16. It also host the very famous ‘Eta Carinae’. Eta Carinae is a highly luminous hypergiant star. Estimates of its mass range from 100 to 150 times the mass of the Sun, and its luminosity is about four million times that of the Sun.
Carina Nebula Acquisition details
Date: July 8 and 9
Location: Kiripotib, Namibia
Optics: APM 107/700 triplet with Riccardi 0.75 reducer
Mount: Fornax 51
Camera: Unmodified Nikon D600
Guiding: Lacerta MGEN
Exposures: 52 x 5min. ISO800
