On one of the last nights in Chile, Mark was working from a list Steve Gottlieb had provided... He called me over to his eyepiece view of NGC 3324, an emission nebula very near to, and probably a detached portion of, the Eta Carinae Nebula. Steve had nicknamed it "The Southern Crescent." Indeed, a very nice semicircular, bright nebula, which responded to filters well. Similar in form and size to NGC 6888, hence Steve's nickname. As we were comparing views and playing with filters (in my 13 and his 10) Loke Tan, one of the two astrophotographers on site, told us that this nebula was nicknamed by Chilenos--especially of this region--"The Gabriela Mistral Nebula." (Gabriela Mistral was a Nobel Prize winner of Literature--a local heroine.) Click on the below link, and you'll see why:
http://www.astrosurf.com/antilhue/NGC%203324.htm
Here's another image of the "profile":
http://www.ctio.noao.edu/~leiton/pictures/gabi.gif
Ray Cash
Received on Tue Mar 22 10:27:33 2005
