Dark Doodad Nebula
The Dark Doodad Nebula is a long, dark nebula located the southern constellation of Musca (the Fly). It consists of regions of dense gas and dust and is approximately three degrees long. This cloud is one of the closest star forming regions to the solar system and is easily visible with binoculars from a dark-sky location.
Near the southern end of the Dark Doodad is the globular cluster NGC 4372. According to Wikipedia, "the Dark Doodad was named by American amateur astronomer and writer Dennis di Cicco in 1986 upon seeing an image he took from Alice Springs in central Australia."
For more information see the entry on the Dark Doodad at Wikipedia. For a chart of the constellation Musca, see Musca (the Fly).
Technical Details
- Object: Dark Doodad Nebula
- Date/Time: 2018 Apr 10 at 03:07 UTC
- Location: Atacama Lodge, San Pedro de Atacama, Chile
- Mount: iOptron iEQ30 Pro GEM
- Lens: Nikkor 200mm f/4
- Camera: Nikon D750
- Field of View: 10.3° x 6.9° at 8.2 arc-sec/pixel
- Exposure: 4 x 240s, f/4, ISO 3200
- File Name: Doodad18-01w.jpg
- Pre-Preprocessing (Starry Sky Stacker): Sub Exposures were Flat-Fielded, Registered and Stacked
- Processing (Adobe Lightroom): White Balance, Curves, Noise Reduction
- Original Image Size: 4016 × 6016 pixels (17.9 MP); 13.4" x 20.1" @ 300 dpi
- Rights: Copyright 2018 by Fred Espenak. All Rights Reserved. See: Image Licensing.