Object: NGC 2070 & 2080
The Tarantula Nebula, aka NGC 2070 and Doradus 30, and NGC 2080, aka The Ghost Head Nebula, is a complex HII region at the eastern end of the Large Magellanic Cloud’s (LMC) stellar bar. The LMC is a satellite galaxy orbiting our Milky Way and is located approximately 180,000 light years from Earth. NGC 2070 occupies the right half of this mosaic while NGC 2080 lies in the upper left quadrant. The nebula in the lower left quadrant of the frame is NGC 2048. The Tarantula Nebula alone spans nearly 1000 light years across, making it nearly 40 times larger than M42, the Great Nebula in Orion. All data for this mosaic image was acquired by Howard Hedlund of Astro-Physics, Inc., with processing by Dave Jurasevich
- Team: Dave Jurasevich and Howard Hedlund
- Filters: Tru-Balance 5nm Hydrogen-Alpha
- Exposure: Ha 2 x 15 ea x 1200 sec, 1x1 bin (10 hours total exposure)
- Date: March 2015
- Software: CCDStack 2, Photoshop CS5