RCW85

Here is another southern nebula that looks like a mountain. Some have dubbed it the Devil’s Tower Nebula, though I think that’s a bit of a stretch. If you zoom in on the ‘peak’ area, there are rays of light broken by shadows, similar to sun rays around the rim of a cloud. This rare feature adds to the sense of depth and dimension for this object.

The bright star is HD125158 (magnitude 5.2). While it is illuminating the reflection component of the nebula, as a type A star, it is not hot enough to be the ionizing star for the emission component–that would be HD124314, which sits outside the nebula and it outside of frame for this image. There is faint OIII signal in the background, but the bright spot at the tip of RCW85, which appears in all three narrowband channels, is due to the reflection component. The open cluster at the base of RCW85 is Lynga 2 (vdBH157).

• Exposures:
  • H-alpha, SII: 30×300s each
  • OIII: 35×300s
  • Total exposure time:  7 hours 55 minutes
• Taken remotely from DeepSkyChile, Apr 4, 2024
• Telescope: Takahashi TOA-130 with flattener (f/7.7)
• Camera: ZWO ASI6200MM-Pro
• Mount: 10Micron GM1000HPS
• Acquisition: NINA
• Processing: AstroPixelProcessor, PixInsight