Oxygen in the Great Carina Nebula

I has chanced upon astrophotographer +Dylan O'Donnell website and I was astonished by his work.
I'm sharing the image below, taken by him thanks to an 11″ Celestron F2 RASA telescope and a QHY9 mono CCD.
In this image, he decided the Hubble palette was the most compelling as the doubly ionised Oxygen spewing from the core is really brilliant and not normally so visible against the normally-red Hydrogen, seen here in the green areas.

► More technical information, at this link>> http://deography.com/oxygen-in-the-great-carina-nebula/

A jewel of the southern sky, the Great Carina Nebula, also known as NGC 3372, spans over 300 light-years, one of our galaxy's largest star forming regions. It lies in the Sagittarius-Carina arm of the Milky Way that is 7,500 light years from Earth. The Chandra X-Ray Observatory has detected more than 14,000 stars in the region.

The Carina Nebula is home to young, extremely massive stars, including the still enigmatic variable Eta Carinae, a star with well over 100 times the mass of the Sun. Eta Carinae is the brightest star near the image center, just left of the dusty Keyhole Nebula (NGC 3324). While Eta Carinae itself maybe on the verge of a supernova explosion, X-ray images indicate that the Great Carina Nebula has been a veritable supernova factory.

The Carina Nebula is one of the largest diffuse nebulae known (one of the largest H II regions, composed of ionized hydrogen gas, in our Milky Way galaxy), one that contains several open star clusters. In fact, there are many star clusters in its vicinity. Many of them are probably foreground clusters in front of the nebula. Two of these clusters are definitely within the nebula - Trumpler 14 and Trumpler 16. Trumpler 16 includes the star Eta Carinae as one of its member stars.

The Carina Nebula is home to several notable objects: the Mystic Mountain, the Homunculus Nebula, and the previously mentioned Keyhole Nebula.
It was discovered by Nicolas Louis de Lacaille in 1751–52 from the Cape of Good Hope.

Further reading and references

► Carina Nebula>> http://www.constellation-guide.com/carina-nebula/

► The Great Nebula in Carina, NGC 3372 >> http://oldweb.aao.gov.au/images/captions/uks006.html

► Carina Nebula - Hubble's 25th anniversary>> https://hubble25th.org/images/10

► NGC 3372 - The Eta Carinae Nebula>> http://www.atlasoftheuniverse.com/nebulae/ngc3372.html

#Universe, #CarinaNebula, #DiffuseNebulae, #Astronomy