ETA Carina Nebula
Another spectacular object in the southern sky is the Eta Carina nebula in the constellation Carina. It is a vast complex region of light and dark nebulosity located approximately 8,500 lightyears from Earth. The Carina nebula is brighter and four times as large as the well-known Orion nebula but is less known due to it’s location in the southern sky. It is so far south that for times during the southern hemisphere winter it barely rises above the horizon.
The star Eta Carinae is highly luminous “hypergiant” star, with an estimated mass of 100-150 times that of the Sun and luminosity about four million times that of the Sun. This star is one of the major sources of illumination of the nebula, although not the only one. There are small clusters of stars and other features scattered throughout the region.
This image was captured using a remote telescope through the web site telescope.live and filtered for Hydrogen Alpha, Sulphur II, and Oxygen III emissions. I accessed the raw files from the site’s archives and processed the color image. I combined the filtered grayscale images to create the false color image.
Light, Shadow, Form, and Texture 