The core area of the Carina Nebula, with the bright star Eta Carinae and its Homunculus Nebula overexposed at centre, and the darker region of the Keyhole Nebula to the right of Eta. The star cluster at upper right is Trumpler 14. The grouping around Eta Carinae itself is Trumpler 16. This is an L-RGB stack of 2 to 4 exposures from 60s to 150s for each channel, taken with the T33 RCOS reflector telescope at the Siding Spring iTelescope installation on May 7, 2019 under robotic control. T33 is a 320mm aperture (12.5-inch) f/9 Ritchey-Chretien Cassegrain with an Apogee CCD camera) with 4096 x 4096 pixels) and on a Paramount mount. My script called for more sub-frames to be shot but the session truncated, and indeed the last frames had trailed stars, I suspect because of the scope reaching its limit of tracking across the meridian without flipping, as this target was due south during my session. Images registered and stacked in PixInsight (using Median and Winsorized Sigma stack mode) to create separate masters for each channel, but merged to an LRGB image using Photoshop. Median filter applied to the RGB layer to eliminate the hot pixels remaining despite the on-site image calibration.
The Football Cluster, aka the Black Arrow Cluster in Carina, NGC 3532. The dark band across the middle that gives it its nickname of the Black Arrow Cluster is just visible here. But it is also known as the Football Cluster, from the elongated appearance as an Australian rugby ball. This is a stack of for 3-minute exposures with the original Canon 5D, modified, at ISO 800, and Astro-Physics Traveler at f/6, from Coonabarabran, NSW, Australia.
NGC 3532 open cluster, with Canon 20Da camera with 4-inch Astro-Physics Traveler apo refractor at f/6 for 3 minutes each at ISO800. Stack of 2 exposures, averaged stacked. Taken from Queensland, Australia, July 2006.
