1,060-hour image of the Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC) captured by Amateur Astronomers

AstroSpace ^ | 4/12/19 | Guillaume Doyen

[LibWhacker]

1,060-hour image of the Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC) captured by Amateur Astronomers

Guillaume Doyen
12 avril 2019

label Astrophotographie / Astrophotography

label English

1060 is the number of hours needed to capture this highly-resolved image (204 Megapixels) of the Large Magellanic Cloud. It might be the world's longest exposure image within the amateur astronomers community.

In astrophotography, the amount of time you spend imaging a celestial object is inherently fundamental. The longer your camera's shutter is open, the more light you get, so that the darkest regions of the sky start to get clearer. Usually, amateur astronomers are familiar with very long integration times, such as few minutes or even few tens of hours. However, reaching a total amount of several hundred hours increases the complexity of image processing and therefore remains quite rare... though, five keen amateur astrophotographers challenged themselves and decided to capture a picture of 1060 hours of total exposure time, which can be considered as a world record (professional astronomy excluded).

This image is not only a technical accomplishment, but brings also a scientific interest to one of the most amazing deep sky object of the Southern sky : The Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC).

P1060-hour-exposure in the Large Magellanic Cloud, in SHO colors. Taken by "Ciel Austral".

★ A Team of amateur astronomers behind this feat

The image is a mosaic made of 16 smaller fields of view, which, once stitched together form a high-resolution image of 204 Million of pixels! As of matter of fact, this is not the work of a single person but by a team of five french amateur astronomers called "Ciel Austral":  Jean Claude CANONNE, Philippe BERNHARD, Didier CHAPLAIN, Nicolas OUTTERS et Laurent BOURGON.

"Ciel Austral" owns a remotely-controlled observatory located in the most prestigious skies of the planet, in Chile, and more precisely at the El Sauce Observatory (Coquimbo Region). A 160-mm APO-refractor telescope and a Moravian CCD were used to obtain this wonderful field. The datasets were taken over several months, ranging from 2018 and 2019. The heavy files handled represent 620 GB and needed few hundreds of hours to get out of the image processing step! Once stacked together, they make up the stunning figure of 1060 hours of exposure. If you are more curious, we invite you having a look at their official website here. 

You certainly noticed the color-rendering of this image is quite unusual. Indeed, astrophotographers used a couple of special filters which transmit narrow parts -lines- of the visible spectrum : the Hydrogen Alpha line at 656 nm, the Sulfur line at 672 nm and the Oxygen III spectral line at 500 nm. These kind of filters enable to emphasize chemical components located in high-density gas regions like nebulae, what standard RGB imaging can not perform.

Settled in Chile since 2017, the Ciel Austral Observatory gives to this 5-member team a way to expanding their knowledge and skills in astronomical imagery in order to fulfill its most ambitious projects. So, one should stay tuned for more of their upcoming fantastic images.

★ The Large Magellanic Cloud

Picture of the LMC in RGBHaO color rendering, taken by Ciel Austral team.

This image shows us a unique view of the most famous night-sky object for Southern-Hemisphere astronomy. The LMC is actually a satellite neighbor of our Milky Way galaxy pretty close to us, at 50 kilo-parsecs distance (163k light-years). Scientists estimate it will do a full orbit around us in only 1.5 Billion years...

The Large Magellanic Cloud belongs to the Local Group - a list of about 50 galaxies close to each other, including our own. 

If you have the opportunity to spend a night under the Southern Skies, this naked-eye-visible object will surprise you by its wide angular size and its strong brightness: LMC covers a slice of the sky which can contain 20 moon diameters, shining at a 0.9 magnitude!

[LibWhacker]

Wouldn’t be surprised. I read somewhere that most galaxies have been involved in previous collisions with other galaxies at some point in their history. We all know Andromeda is headed this way - for a collision in about seven or eight billion years. But also the Large Magellanic Cloud is slated to hit us in about four billion years, iirc. Could be a fun time to be around. Could be the opposite of fun.

[LibWhacker]

Those are nebula, most probably nova and supernova remnants, since iirc (someone correct me if I'm wrong!) the natural, native clouds of gas and dust in the Magellanic clouds dried up long ago; i.e., are no longer producing new stars. The Magellanic clouds are composed mostly of old stars; few new ones are being "born."

[minnesota_bound]

ping

[LibWhacker]

The Milky Way is a barred spiral, supposedly like Andromeda, though, for the life of me, I’ve never been able to make out the bar in Andromeda. I guess barred spirals come in all kinds of different flavors.

[LibWhacker]

Thanks. In the queue. Looks like a good one. I’ll definitely watch it as soon as I can, thx!

[PIF]

Seems to me that your position rests on the assumption that life can arise spontaneously, accidentally, with no outside assistance.

---

No. If G_D creates life on one world, He can create life where ever on what ever place in any form.

BTW and FWIW: Long ago I saw a chart of the then known stars, galaxies, clusters etc which plotted out to look something like da Vinci's drawing of Vitruvian Man

[Conan the Librarian]

I’ve never read that Andromeda was a barred spiral either. The LMC is a spiral but warped.

This is one of the sights I hope to look at when we sail south of the equator. I’ve a small scope on board for just such an occasion.

[dsc]

“If G_D creates life on one world, He can create life where ever on what ever place in any form.”

Well, off course He is able, but that doesn’t tell us whether He did or not.

[Delta 21]

In the darkest region of the picture, there are stars packed from one side of the screen to the other. Literally stars and galaxies as far as anyone’s eyes can see.

[central_va]

In the Navy you are referred to as a Wog. If you cross the equator you become a shell back. If you cross the equator at the prime meridian you are a golden shell back. I am a golden shell back.

[LibWhacker]

Cool. So you crossed the equator in southern Algeria. I suspect that’s not a place many Americans get to!

[LibWhacker]

Oops, never mind. I was looking at the Tropic of Cancer on this map, not the equator. I was thinking you must’ve flown over it. But where the heck were you going??? That’s when I spotted the equator and realized my mistake.

[central_va]

The prime meridian and the equator cross over water.

[dsc]

“In the Navy you are referred to as a Wog”

In my day, it was polliwog.

Wog was an uncomplimentary term for a west Asian, coined because limey newspapers didn’t want to print “worthy oriental gentleman” all the time.

[central_va]

A Golden Shellback I be matey.

[SunkenCiv]

Thanks colorado tanker.

[dsc]

I’m just an ordinary shellback.

Good enough, says I.

[central_va]

Arg...

[wxgesr]

Yippy-ti-yo!!!

Thanks DannyTN...mucho appreciado

[wxgesr]

“All me bloomin’ life”

Shellback, Blue Nose, Royal Order of Canals (All of them I think), Plankowner USS BELLEAU WOOD LHA-3, all former grey hulls are keeping Davey Jones company or worse, being used to shave.

Initiated and proud, never quit, always help a shipmate, honor, courage, commitment.

I was once on the receiving end of a pi$$ed off ETCM in 1978...this Master Chief had enlisted during WWII...he bellowed loud enough for everyone in the hangar bay to hear, “What the hell has happened to my navy?”

“I don’t know Master Chief”

“You new navy pukes make me sick, beat feet!”

So I did.