NGC 6164 has an appearance similar to what you would see in a planetary nebula. It has a gaseous shroud that surrounds the central star. These typically have shock-waves, and often highlight where they brighten showing where they are interacting with the interstellar medium.

The extensive outer halo would have to be my favorite part of this image. The outer halo is very dim and certainly proved to be a challenge to reveal it with all the tiny filaments with blue and teal highlights and a bit of red where Ha is present. There is a feature that I initially believed to be a light leak. On the left side of the image, there is what looks like a straight line. After looking through many images, it’s definitely real, and not a light leak.

NGC 6164 is 4,200 light-years away in the constellation of Ara. It is about 21 X 13 arc mins, at magnitude 11. It contains a very bright O-type star about 40 times as massive as our sun. The nebula in the center spans around 4 light-years and has an interesting bipolar symmetry, this is all framed nicely in the larger outer-shell, all set within a beautiful star-field.

Equipment Details: 10 Inch RCOS fl 9.1

Astro Physics AP-900 Mount

SBIG STL 11000m

FLI Filter Wheel

Astrodon Lum, Red, Green, Blue Filters

Baader Planetarium H-alpha 7nm Narrowband-Filter

Baader Planetarium OIII 8.5nm Narrowband-Filter

Baader Planetarium SII 8.0nm Narrowband-Filter

Exposures Details:

Lum 45X900 Bin 1

Red 15X900 Bin 1

Green 14X900 Bin 1

Blue 12X900 Bin 1

Ha 61X1800

OIII 113X1800

Total Time: 108.75 hours

Copyright: Terry Robison