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NGC 3293 is the open cluster that appears just in front of a red nebulosity with a definite structure. This cluster is pretty young. Its stars have formed in two waves. The first one was about 20 million years ago and the then formed stars can be seen now as the redder stars around the cluster. The second “wave”, which happened about 5-6 million years ago, provided a large set of blue stars. The strongly radiating stars do not have had yet enough time to carve/modify the beautiful filamentary structure of the nebula.
This image has been taken with narrowband filters (Halpha and OIII) as well as broadband B in order to provide the right colors of the reflection nebula as well as higher contrast (crispier) details in the structure of the nebula. This image is another sample of our ongoing project with Christian Sasse.
Additional Information
Object
Name(s): NGC 3293
Type: Open cluster, reflection nebula and emission nebuls
RA: 10h 35m 34s
Dec: -58º 07’ 21”
Constellation: Carina
Size (arcmin): 9×9 arcmin (cluster)
Magnitude: +5
Distance:8,000 ly
Image
Date: 2023-03-04 to 2023-03-16
Location: Obstech, Río Hurtado, Chile
Size (arcmin): 28×37 arcmin
Telescope: 24” f/6.5 Reflector
Camera: QHY 461 (11760x8896pix)
Guiding: off-axis guider
Total exposure: 28h 20m (Ha: 14h; OIII: 11h 20m; RGB: 3h)
Processing: CCDStack, PixInsight (one process) and Photoshop CC 2023