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Equipment

Askar FRA400 · ZWO ASI6200MM Pro · Optolong Blue 2" · Optolong Green 2" · Optolong Luminance 2" · Optolong Red 2" · ZWO EAF · ZWO EFW 7 x 2″ · Nikita Misiura StarNet · Pleiades Astrophoto PixInsight · Russell Croman Astrophotography BlurXTerminator · Russell Croman Astrophotography NoiseXTerminator

Integration

16h 18′

LDN 673 is a dark, dense, chaotic molecular cloud in the constellation Aquila, about 600 light years from Earth. Near the center of the much larger Aquila Rift, this nebula and its neighbors blocks so much of the light from distant background stars that their light is “reddened”, making them appear orange/red, casting the whole area in very pretty colors contrasting with the dark nebula itself, which blocks the starlight completely. Like similar dense molecular clouds, LDN 673 is a birthplace of new stars, some of which are even visible, including the Herbig-Haro object HH32, and GN 19.18.0 a bit above it. These sites are just 2 examples of energetic outflows caused by young protostars on their way toward the main sequence, and being really chaotic and volatile while they do it. These protostars are so volatile at first that they generate powerful jets that slam into surrounding material, making it glow. HH32 in particular is a class II protostar - its blown away most of the gas and dust that initially blocked it from view, letting us watch this short-lived stage of its pre-main sequence life. In a few hundred thousand years, the central T Tauri star that drives HH32 will have contracted under its own gravity enough to heat its core 10 million Kelvin, hot enough to fuse hydrogen into helium. At that point, the star will officially move to the main sequence portion of its life, adding one more star to this already rich region.