THE PIPE NEBULA - AKA BARNARD 59, 65-67 & 78

DARK NEBULA IN OPHIUCHUS

 (Image Centred at ra: 17.21/ dec -27:25)

September 2009, Mercedes Buenos Aires, Argentina

DATA

TYPE: Dark Nebula

Apparent Magnitude: n/a

Apparent Diameter: approximately 7º 25 minutes

DISTANCE: 7000 lights years

IMAGE INFORMATION

SCOPE: Zenit lens 55 m f1.8 stop at f4

CAMERA: SXVF H9

GUIDING: Orion ED 80 with SX Guide Camera

IMAGE ACQUISITION: AstroArt 3.0 - Control Interface 3.72 plug in

FILTERS: Astronomik Type II - Only IR used - Atik Filter Wheel

SKY CONDITIONS: rural skies - transparency and seeing good

EXPOSURES: L (50) 10 X 5 minutes subs exposures

PROCESSING: Images Plus, CCD Sharp, Photoshop CS2

OBJECT DESCRIPTION AND IMAGE SESSION

It is a large but readily apparent pipe shaped dust lane that obscures the Milky Way star clouds behind it. Clearly visible to the naked eye under clear dark skies, but it is best viewed with binoculars.

In a pipe shaped form, this fantastic object covers an area of more than 7 degrees. The only way to capture it all was using the small but quite effective Zenit lens. Blue and Green channels where spoiled by the due, hence the image in colour was impossible to process. The definition of this lens is outstanding and allowed to increase the image almos15% of its original size