IC2220 - The Toby Jug Nebula

The Toby Jug Nebula / The Butterfly Nebula / IC2220

 

This impressive structure is the Toby Jug Nebula named by astronomers P. Murdin, D. Allen and D. Malin because it resembled the shape of a Toby Jug tankard. IC 2220 has nearly symmetrical loops of dust and gas reaching outwards that highlight the death throes of an ancient red-giant star.

 

I have always enjoyed imaging reflection nebula. Most are typically blue, reflecting and dispersing the light from young bright blue stars. In this instance, we have a rare yellow reflection nebula. There are examples of some well-known red-orange reflection nebula, which always result from nearby red giant stars.

 

In this image, I wanted to capture some extra HII data to see if I could use this to enhance the image. There was certainly an impressive glow at the core, but it failed to reveal any extra filaments or structure to the nebula with the limited amount of HII data I collected. To my delight, two HII lobes started to reveal themselves further out from the main reflection nebula. You can locate these dim HII areas (lobes) as the dim arcs containing a reddish hue. I would need a lot more integration time to highlight these areas.

 

I love galaxies. If you look around the image, they seem to pop out everywhere. There is even a tiny galaxy in the reflection nebula (around the 7:30 position near the end of the large filament. I tried finding a name for this galaxy using the SIMBAD Astronomical Database, but it reported an “unknown object”. I had to try :)

 

Full Size version:

live.staticflickr.com/65535/53901049463_30ee182f75_o.jpg

 

 

Instruments:

Telescope: 10" Ritchey-Chrétien RCOS

Camera: SBIG STXL-11000 Mono

Mount: Astro-Physics AP-900

Focal Length: 2310.00 mm

Pixel size: 9.00 um

Resolution: 0.82 arcsec/pix

 

Lum 84 X 600

Red 24 X 380 Bin2

Green 24 X 380 Bin2

Blue 24 X 380 Bin2

Ha 51 X 1200

 

Total Exposure: 38 Hours

 

Thanks for looking

 

Done