This area with NGC6188 is often called the Rim Nebula, but I’ve been calling it ‘the Hands’ as it reminds me of two hands touching. It stood high on my list of targets to do so I started on this after I finished imaging the Carina Nebula. But, having the Carina Nebula as comparison, the first results were a bit disappointing to me, as it is far less bright as the Carina nebula. This is of course an unfair comparison as the Carina Nebula is exceptionally bright. The Rim nebula (or ‘the Hands’) required some more integration time before it would show it’s distinct structures. I spend over 7 hours on this over the course of two nights.
The much smaller emission nebula NGC6164, which can be seen just right of the middle at the bottom of the picture, is much brighter and is even starting to show it’s faint blue outer halo as you can see in the 100% crop below:
Next to these nebula’s this area contains several open star clusters, dark nebula’s and reflection nebula’s. They make up very interesting and rich field of view.
Rim Nebula NGC6188 Acquisition details
Date: July 10 and 16
Location: Kiripotib, Namibia
Optics: APM 107/700 triplet with Riccardi 0.75 reducer
Mount: Fornax 51
Camera: Unmodified Nikon D600
Guiding: Lacerta MGEN
Exposures: 35x8min ISO800 and 16x10min ISO400
