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Surrounding a bright
but sparse open cluster called the "Christmas Tree Cluster",
we find an enormous cloud of hydrogen, dust and dark nebula.
Here, the brightest star in this field is 15 Monoceros. This
illuminates the inner blue reflection nebulosity and the hot
stars of this cluster excite the hydrogen to glow a pure crimson
color. At the bottom of the red nebulosity is the dark intrusion
known as the "Cone Nebula".
There is really no
dark sky to be found in this 1.5 degree wide field. The entire
field is glowing red and the true sky without nebulosity is outside
this field.
This is the first
shot with the new drive controller on the mount up in Happy Jack,
which I built to allow one computer to control the camera, guider
and mount. In the past, two computers were required making for
one huge cable nightmare! This new shot, which is 3 hours total
integration time proves the new system can work very well.
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