The Running Cicken Nebula

Image Title: The Running Chicken Nebula

Copyright: Alessandro Carrozzi

Date image was taken: May 15, 2024

Location: Rio Hurtado, Chile
Hakos, Namibia

Image Description and Details: IC 2944 is an emission nebula about 6,000 light years away, commonly called the Running Chicken Nebula, a rather creative name (I still don't understand how one can see a figure of a chicken in it...). It is also famous because it is very rich in Bok globules, small clouds of gas and dust so dense that they block out visible light. The image was taken in narrow band, i.e. with filters that select the emissions of the main elements that constitute the nebula, in this case sulphur, hydrogen and oxygen, and putting together data from 2 telescopes placed about 8000 km apart in Chile and Namibia for a total of almost 7 h of exposure!

Equipment Details: System 1 (Chile): Takahashi Epsilon 180 mm (500 mm focal length) with ZWO ASI 2600 MM. 10x300s SII (5 nm), 32x120s Ha (5 nm), 10x300s OIII (5 nm).
System 2 (Namibia): Takahashi FSQ 106ED (530 mm focal length) with Moravian C3-61000. 17x300s SII (8 nm), 17x300s Ha (7 nm), 17x300s OIII (8.5 nm)

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