RCW58 is a stunning Wolf-Rayet shell in Carina that should be on every list of top deep-sky objects. Nearly every image I’ve seen of it is a close-up, revealing the iris-like striations that make it look like a flaming eye. Here, I’ve framed it wider, revealing the dense Milky Way stars it sits in front of, as well as one of the many dark nebulae in this area. As best as I can tell, the dark nebula at bottom-left is catalogued as two objects: the left part is Dobashi 5806 and the right/central part is Sandqvist 128. The bright star is magnitude 5.2 HD97583.
In processing this, I created an RGB image, an H-alpha image, and an OIII image. I stretched them all to the same background level, then I set the red channel to be the max of the RGB image and the H-alpha image. Likewise for blue and OIII. This brought the much brighter narrowband data into the image without affecting the color balance of the rest of it.
I also found a tiny planetary nebula in the HOO data: PN G291.9-04.0. It’s at the 11 o’clock position, about a third of the way down from the top.
- Exposures (-10ºC, gain=0):
- Ha: 27×300s
- OIII: 24×300s
- R: 25×180
- G: 25×180
- B: 25×180
- Total exposure time: 8 hours
- Taken remotely from DeepSkyChile, Feb 17, 2024
- Telescope: Takahashi TOA-130 with flattener (f/7.7)
- Camera: ZWO ASI6200MM-Pro
- Mount: 10Micron GM1000HPS
- Acquisition: NINA
- Processing: AstroPixelProcessor, PixInsight
Deep-sky Imaging 