NGC 6543 Cat's Eye Nebula

NGC 6543, also known as the Cat's Eye Nebula, is a planetary nebula located in the constellation Draco, approximately 3,300 light-years from Earth.

 

Its intricate shape and colourful appearance have earned it the nicknames the Cat’s Eye Nebula, the Snail Nebula, and the Sunflower Nebula.

 

It formed around 1,000 years ago, when an aging star reached the end of its life and expelled its outer layers of gas and dust into space. The ejected clouds of material now surround the hot, bright planetary nebula nucleus, which illuminates them. Those outer clouds are quite faint. I needed 4 hours with my Celestron C11 to capture this level of detail.

 

Planetary nebulae are relatively short-lived phenomena. They typically last only 10,000 years. The Cat’s Eye Nebula will gradually disperse over the next several thousand years and the central star will eventually cool down and slowly fade away as a white dwarf.

 

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Telescope: Celestron C11-A XLT Schmidt Cassegrain OTA

Mount: SkyWatcher EQ6-R Pro

 

Controller: ZWO ASIAIR Plus

Main Camera: ZWO ASI533MC Pro at -10C

Filter: Optolong L-eNhance filter

Focuser: ZWO EAF

Guide Camera: ZWO ASI174MM Mini guidecam

Guide via: ZWO OAG

 

Stacked from:

Lights 78 at 180 seconds, gain 101, temp -10C

Darks 30 at 180 seconds, gain 101, temp -10C

Flat 30 at 10.9 seconds, gain 101, temp -10C

Dark Flat 30 at 10.9 seconds, gain 101 temp -10C

 

Bortle 4 sky.

Integrated the saved frames in Astro Pixel Processor.

Processed in PixInsight

Captions added in Photoshop CS4

 

 

 

Done