The Crab Nebula - Wideview
This is a widefield view of M1, or NGC 1952, the Crab Nebula in the depths of space. M1 is found in the constellation of Taurus.
Appearing as an oval-shaped mass of tangled filaments it is the remains of a supernova. Records are believed to show that the supernova was seen in daylight and it was recorded by Chinese astronomers in 1054!
It was brighter than the planet Venus and remained visible to the naked eye some 2 years after discovery.
It was independently discovered by Charles Messier when he erroneously thought he'd discovered Halley's Comet. He was searching (without success) for that comet after its return was predicted.
This led Messier to start to produce his famous catalogue listing objects which could confuse him and future comet hunters. The first entry being M1 The Crab Nebula, a case in point!
Observations by William Parsons, 3rd Earl of Rosse in 1840 and his subsequent sketch which looked like a crab led to the name which we still use today....it's definitely not crab-like!
M1 lies at a distance of around 6500 lightyears from us. At the heart of this object is the Crab Pulsar, a neutron star 17-19 miles across and spinning at a rate of around 30 times per second!
The pulsar was discovered by Dr Jocelyn Bell in 1968.
Imaged with my focal reduced Esprit 120 and a ZWO 2600MC.
I lost a lot of subs. due to clouds (surprise!) and ended up with 37 satisfactory exposures.
37x2min Lights - total 74mins
Darks - Temp. Matched
Flats and Dark Flats
Camera at gain 100 and cooled to -10°C
Processed in AstroPixel Processor and Photoshop 2022.
I was happy to get some filament structure in the image as these features are much better resolved in narrowband. I would like to revisit the object with narrowband filters at some stage. Remaining hopeful..
The Crab Nebula - Wideview
This is a widefield view of M1, or NGC 1952, the Crab Nebula in the depths of space. M1 is found in the constellation of Taurus.
Appearing as an oval-shaped mass of tangled filaments it is the remains of a supernova. Records are believed to show that the supernova was seen in daylight and it was recorded by Chinese astronomers in 1054!
It was brighter than the planet Venus and remained visible to the naked eye some 2 years after discovery.
It was independently discovered by Charles Messier when he erroneously thought he'd discovered Halley's Comet. He was searching (without success) for that comet after its return was predicted.
This led Messier to start to produce his famous catalogue listing objects which could confuse him and future comet hunters. The first entry being M1 The Crab Nebula, a case in point!
Observations by William Parsons, 3rd Earl of Rosse in 1840 and his subsequent sketch which looked like a crab led to the name which we still use today....it's definitely not crab-like!
M1 lies at a distance of around 6500 lightyears from us. At the heart of this object is the Crab Pulsar, a neutron star 17-19 miles across and spinning at a rate of around 30 times per second!
The pulsar was discovered by Dr Jocelyn Bell in 1968.
Imaged with my focal reduced Esprit 120 and a ZWO 2600MC.
I lost a lot of subs. due to clouds (surprise!) and ended up with 37 satisfactory exposures.
37x2min Lights - total 74mins
Darks - Temp. Matched
Flats and Dark Flats
Camera at gain 100 and cooled to -10°C
Processed in AstroPixel Processor and Photoshop 2022.
I was happy to get some filament structure in the image as these features are much better resolved in narrowband. I would like to revisit the object with narrowband filters at some stage. Remaining hopeful..