Apus, the Bird of Paradise, is a very small southern constellation with no spectacular deep sky objects. The most significat patch of sky here is this one around IC4633, a faint galaxy surrounded by a very faint Integrated Flux Nebula. IFN is a gauze of gas and dust that glows by reflecting all the collective light of the Milky Way. Its material is so thin that light from external galaxies shine through it. IC 4633 (at centre top) is conspicuous on the edge of the emission glow while just below lies the bright sliver of a distant edge-on spiral or lenticular system, IC4635. Apo TEC140 (140/f7.2) - FLI Proline 16803 - L (300m) R (90m) G (90m) B (90m) - Warrumbungle Observatory, Coonabarabran, NSW, Australia
The Lupus clouds compose one of the main low-mass star forming complexes within 200 pc of the Sun. They contain four main star forming sites, including B228 in Barnard’s catalogue pictured above, more frequently referred to as Lupus 1 in modern literature. It is likely that the Sun formed in a similar star formation region more than four billion years ago. B228 is sometime named the Dark Wolf nebula. Apo TEC140 (140/f7.2) - FLI Proline 16803 - L (340m) R (120m) G (120m) B (120m) - Warrumbungle Observatory, Coonabarabran, NSW, Australia
