Thor's Helmet Narrowband

This distinctive emission nebula in Canis Major has been a target of interest to me for a couple of years but it's low in my sky and only accessible for imaging for a limited window on winter nights. I tried a few different optical and filtering setups before settling on narrowband imaging with a mono camera and refractive optics. Here OIII blue and green show glowing Oxygen and H-alpha red shows glowing Hydrogen, largely overlapped in the structure. Without the side "wings" this resembles the bubble nebula, with gasses expanding out from a super-hot Wolf Rayet star. Various sources say it's 11-15,000 light years away and about 30 light years across.

 

Tech Stuff:

Borg 71FL with 2X TV Powermate for 800mm fl (f/11)

iOptron CubePro 8200 EQ mode guided with PHD2

QHY 163 mono bin 2 15 second exposures livestacked with SharpCap 3.2 using dark and flat subtraction, -30° C

Astronomik Ha filter 64 minutes

Astronomk O3 filter 70 minutes

processed with PixInsight and ACDSee18

imaged from my yard 10 miles north of NYC Feb 3-6 2019

SQM-L readings 18.6-18.9 (Red Zone/Bortle 6-7)

Part of my ongoing exploration of ultraportable urban/suburban imaging techniques

Done