Located in the southern constellation of Tucan we find one of our satellite galaxies, the Small Magellanic Cloud (SMC). This dwarf galaxy was supposed to be a nebula when it was observed by Ferdinand Magellan and his crew while doing the first circumnavigation of planet Earth in the early 1500s.
This image was captured last September 2022 during my recent trip to Namibia. We can see in the image several nebulae within the sea of stars that can be distinguished individually. The SMC is located some 210,000 light-years away in the constellation of Tucan (Tucana) and spans 15,000 light-years with several hundred million stars. Also very prominent we can see two globular clusters, the 47 Tucanae (NGC 104) and NGC 362.
The full image shown above covers an area of 4º29′ x 2º59′ at a resolution of 2.59″/pixel.
See this Tour to the SMC at my Youtube channel: https://youtu.be/D_wLakY1me0
Thanks for your time on this website.
Image Details
L: 30×120″ (1h)
RGB: 15x 60″ each channel (45′)
Ha: 20 x 300″ (1h40′)
[OIII]: 12×300″ (1h)
Calibrated with darks, flats. dark-flats.
Total exposure: 4h 25′
Moon at 3% (not visible when capturing the images)
Sky darkness: 22,05 mag/arcsec2
Image resolution: 2.59”/pixel
FOV (full image): 4º29′ x 2º59′
Equipment
FRA300 + ASI2600MM + LRGB ZWO filters + ZWO EFW 7 pos + ZWO EAF
ZWO AM5 mount
ASI AIR Plus
Guiding with ASI120MM and ZWO Mini Guide Scope
Software
ASI Air, APP, PIX, TPZ, LR, PS.
Aleix Roig, October 2022
Tivoli Astrofarm (Namibia).