Medusa

6Jan2010

After four consecutive nights of imaging into the early hours, it's time for an early night :-) I captured the Medusa Nebula during last nights run. Unfortunately I had to throw away 40 mins of data due to guiding errors, otherwise I would have had over four hours of data ... it is very faint.

 

The Medusa Nebula is a very old and large planetary nebula in the constellation of Gemini on the Canis Minor border. It also known as Abell 21 and Sharpless 274. As it is so big, its surface brightness is very low, with surface magnitudes of between +15.99 and +25 reported. The Medusa was discovered in 1955, and until the early 1980s it was thought to be a supernova remnant.

 

 

 

Location: Hook

Date: 04 January 2010 20:40:55 GMT (start)

Subject: PK205+14.1 - Medusa Nebula

Right Ascension 07h 29m 02.707s

Declination +13° 14′ 48.77″

Distance 1000 ly

Constellation: Gemini

Telescope: Takahashi FS-152

Mount: Takahashi EM-500 (auto-guided)

Mount Control: FS-2 and 'The Sky 6'

Camera: SBIG ST2000XM

Filter: Schuler - H-Alpha

Camera Control: MaxIm DL

Image processing: CCDStack, IRIS and Photoshop

Camera Temp: -20c

Exposure: 22 x 10 minutes

Calibration: Dark and Flat frames applied

 

Done