FROM CRUX TO CARINA

 WIDE FIELD AREA

(Image centered at: ra 11h:54 m / dec  -61º 25')

AUGUST 2026, Observatorio Cielos Albertnos, Buenos Aires, Argentina

DATA

TYPE: Star field

APPARENT DIAMETER: FOV 22 degrees x 15 degrees

APPARENT MAGNITUDE (V): NA

DISTANCE: between 300 to 25000 light years

IMAGE INFORMATION

INSTRUMENT: Canon Ef-s 18-55 lens  

CAMERA: Canon 60Da

EXPOSURES: 15 X 20 seconds

MOUNT: Tripod Hokenn  

FILTERS: None 

SKY CONDITIONS: Bortle 3 skies

OBJECT DESCRIPTION AND IMAGE SESSION

This wide-field astrophotography view from Crux (the Southern Cross) to Carina spans the rich, starry band of the southern Milky Way. This gorgeous celestial corridor links the famous southern cross asterism with the glowing stellar nurseries as Lambda Centauri, Eta Carineae nebula complex. Visible the Coal Sack dark Nebula, NGC 3532 open cluster aka the Wishing Well Cluster and IC 2602 also known as The Southern Pleiades though not much stellar dust around them.

Since a tripod was used the image came with a bit of star trail. To correct the mentioned effect, I have used Russell Croman Blur XT. This image is a cropped piece of the Original frame which was in fact vertical so by cropping resolution was lost. The skies of the Observatory is quite decent so that help to manage to bring some detail even for a total integration of just five minutes.