Chamaeleon I Cloud
The Monkey-head Nebula, IC 2631, Ced 110, Ced 111, Ced 112
The Chamaeleon I (Cha I) cloud is one of the nearest active star formation regions at ~160 pc. It is relatively isolated from other star-forming clouds, so it is unlikely that older pre-main sequence (PMS) stars have drifted into the field. The total stellar population is 200-300. The Cha I cloud is further divided into the North cloud or region and South cloud or main cloud. [wiki]
A labeled image can be seen on the right. Many small objects have already been captured with large telescopes. Like the bubble of DI Chamaeleontis (HST image), or a protostar's bipolar nebula catalogued as HH 909A (GN 11.07.3) (HST image), or the Herbig Haro 49/50 or HH 49/50 by Spitzer Space Telescope (false color infrared image).
Two trips to Namibia were necessary to complete this picture. During the second trip, additional luminance data were captured with the CCD camera to improve the signal to noise ratio of the previously taken DSLR image. In order to cover the full field of the large chip of the 5DmkII camera, I had to create a two panel mosaic with the smaller CCD.
Image details
- Instrument:
- 200/750 Newton, 3" Wynne (710mm effective focal length)
- Camera:
- QSI 683 WSG-8, (Luminance) and modified Canon EOS 5DmkII (color)
- Mount:
- SkyWatcher EQ6 + Boxdörfer DynoStar
- Guiding:
- Lacerta-MGen autoguider on 6x30 finder scope (DSLR) and off-axis guider (CCD)
- Exposure time, filters:
- 90x5 min (DSLR), 2x24x10 min (CCD), 15.5 hours total
- Location, date:
- Hakos astrofarm, Namíbia (1835m); 2014 (DSLR), 2016 (CCD)
- Observing conditions:
- Transparency: 9/10, Seeing: 7/10, Temperature: +17°C
- Processing:
- ImagesPlus, Registar, Pixinsight LE, Photoshop
