Cat's Paw Nebula

Scorpius - Emission Nebulae - Very Faint!

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NGC 6334 and NGC 6357 - Nebulae in Scorpius

Most people have settled on calling the object on the left of this image the "Cat's Paw Nebula," but I suppose that just about any animal will do. Paired here with the interesting NGC 6357, which resembles a crab or jellyfish to me, these objects are extremely faint and covered by the dust and gases of the Scorpius Milky Way area. The objects are located just to the west of M6, the Butterfly cluster, just off the tail of the scorpion itself. The Cat's Paw, or NGC 6334, is a region of star formation, when the dust is obscuring these newly formed and forming stars.

Location: Texas Star Party 2004 near Fort Davis, Texas
Date: May 19, 2004
Transparency: 9/10
Seeing: 8/10
Scope/Mount: Tak FSQ-106 @ f/5 on Tak NJP mount
Camera: SBIG STL-6303E with integrated filter wheel
Filter: Custom Scientific 5 nm H-Alpha filter
Exposure Info: Grayscale, H-Alpha image (4 x 10 minutes)
Processing Info: Dark calibration, deblooming, registration, and Sigma combine in MaxIm 4. DDP in MaxIm 4. Curves, levels, selective unsharp masking and gaussian blur in Photoshop CS.