The Flaming Skull Nebula (Sh2-68)
Sh2-68 is an ancient planetary nebula, visible in the constellation Serpens. Its age is estimated at 45,000 years old.
Located in the northern part of the constellation, about 4° north-northeast of the star η Serpentis, it extends over 8 arcminutes. The nebula has a very irregular shape. The interaction with the surrounding interstellar medium has actually determined a Rayleigh-Taylor instability, hence its shape. Its progenitor star is a white dwarf located in a position offset from the center of the nebula. Its distance is estimated between 120 and 270 parsecs from the solar system, against the 200–500 parsecs estimated for the nebula. This makes this nebula, along with Sh2-174, an excellent subject for testing theories about the interaction between planetary nebulae and the surrounding interstellar medium.
Narrowband (HOO) version: H-Alpha mapped to red, OIII mapped to blue and OIII+Ha mapped to the green channel. While the colors in this image are not the true colors, the narrowband filters were used to create the nebula color. Then I added the natural star colors using RGB filters and Starnet process.
RA 18h 25m 08.3s
DEC +00° 51' 16.6"
ORIENTATION Up is 240.8degrees E of N
CONSTELLATION Serpens
DISTANCE 1,630 ly
Captured August 2022
Field Of view: 26.4 x 36.9 arcmin
Total integration time of 51.5 hours.
Technical Details
Data acquisition: Martin PUGH
Processing: Nicolas ROLLAND
El Sauce Observatory, Rio Hurtado, Chile
L 15 x 1200 sec
Ha 50 x 1800 sec
OIII 23 x 1800 sec
R 14 x 900 sec
G 12 x 900 sec
B 14 x 900 sec
Optics: Planewave 17“ CDK @ F6.8
Mount: Paramount ME
CCD: SBIG STXL-11002 (AOX)
The Flaming Skull Nebula (Sh2-68)
Sh2-68 is an ancient planetary nebula, visible in the constellation Serpens. Its age is estimated at 45,000 years old.
Located in the northern part of the constellation, about 4° north-northeast of the star η Serpentis, it extends over 8 arcminutes. The nebula has a very irregular shape. The interaction with the surrounding interstellar medium has actually determined a Rayleigh-Taylor instability, hence its shape. Its progenitor star is a white dwarf located in a position offset from the center of the nebula. Its distance is estimated between 120 and 270 parsecs from the solar system, against the 200–500 parsecs estimated for the nebula. This makes this nebula, along with Sh2-174, an excellent subject for testing theories about the interaction between planetary nebulae and the surrounding interstellar medium.
Narrowband (HOO) version: H-Alpha mapped to red, OIII mapped to blue and OIII+Ha mapped to the green channel. While the colors in this image are not the true colors, the narrowband filters were used to create the nebula color. Then I added the natural star colors using RGB filters and Starnet process.
RA 18h 25m 08.3s
DEC +00° 51' 16.6"
ORIENTATION Up is 240.8degrees E of N
CONSTELLATION Serpens
DISTANCE 1,630 ly
Captured August 2022
Field Of view: 26.4 x 36.9 arcmin
Total integration time of 51.5 hours.
Technical Details
Data acquisition: Martin PUGH
Processing: Nicolas ROLLAND
El Sauce Observatory, Rio Hurtado, Chile
L 15 x 1200 sec
Ha 50 x 1800 sec
OIII 23 x 1800 sec
R 14 x 900 sec
G 12 x 900 sec
B 14 x 900 sec
Optics: Planewave 17“ CDK @ F6.8
Mount: Paramount ME
CCD: SBIG STXL-11002 (AOX)