View allAll Photos Tagged crabnebula
Hubble's most detailed image of the Crab Nebula
This Hubble image - One among the largest ever produced with the Earth-orbiting observatory - shows gives the most detailed view so far of the entire Crab Nebula ever made. The Crab is arguably the single most interesting object, as well as one of the most studied, in all of astronomy. The image is the largest image ever taken with Hubble?s WFPC2 workhorse camera.
The Crab Nebula is one of the most intricately structured and highly dynamical objects ever observed. The new Hubble image of the Crab was assembled from 24 individual exposures taken with the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope and is the highest resolution image of the entire Crab Nebula ever made.
Credit: NASA, ESA and Allison Loll/Jeff Hester (Arizona State University). Acknowledgement: Davide De Martin (ESA/Hubble)
In commemoration of the 15th anniversary of NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory, four newly processed images of supernova remnants dramatically
illustrate Chandra’s unique ability to explore high-energy processes in the cosmos.
The images of the Tycho and G292.0+1.8 supernova remnants show how Chandra can trace the expanding debris of an exploded star and the associated
shock waves that rumble through interstellar space at speeds of millions of miles per hour. The images of the Crab Nebula and 3C58 show how
extremely dense, rapidly rotating neutron stars produced when a massive star explodes can create clouds of high-energy particles light years
across that glow brightly in X-rays.
NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama, manages the Chandra program for NASA's Science Mission Directorate in Washington. The
Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory in Cambridge, Massachusetts, controls Chandra's science and flight operations.
Read full article:
www.nasa.gov/chandra/news/chandra-15th-anniversary.html
Original caption/more images: chandra.harvard.edu/press/14_releases/press_072214.html
Image credit: NASA/CXC/SAO
Read more about Chandra:
p.s. You can see all of our Chandra photos in the Chandra Group in Flickr at: www.flickr.com/groups/chandranasa/ We'd love to have you as a member!
_____________________________________________
These official NASA photographs are being made available for publication by news organizations and/or for personal use printing by the subject(s)
of the photographs. The photographs may not be used in materials, advertisements, products, or promotions that in any way suggest approval or
endorsement by NASA. All Images used must be credited. For information on usage rights please visit: www.nasa.gov/audience/formedia/features/MP_Photo_Guidelin...
Supernova remnant in the constellation Taurus. This is all that's left of a star explosion that was witnessed by Chinese astronomers in the year 1054. Magnitude 8.4 at a distance of 6,500 light years. More information by following the link below:
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crab_Nebula
Equipment: Celestron C8N on an AVX mount with a Canon 500D.
Guided with a Starshoot Autoguider on a ZWO 60mm guidescope and PHD 2.6.
Exposures;8x600s and 6x720s at iso 800. Stacked in DSS and finished in CS2.
M1 (Messier 1) the Crab Nebula
Chinese astronomers recorded the star exploding in 1054. The supernova was so bright that it could be seen in daylight. What's left and what you see are the remnants of that explosion.
I reprocessed the files that I had for the Crab Nebula that I took back in January and February, 2024 using techniques that I learned in the past 6 months. The nebula definitely looks a lot different than what I had previously (see the comments for a picture).
"My times are in Your hand" Psalm 31:15
The photos used in this composite are all mine except for the space background which is public domain (my artwork is not public domain, its still All Rights Reserved):
hubble.nasa.gov/multimedia/astronomy.php
Thanks to David (tippatree) for the inspiration of his beautiful image "Birthstone":
www.flickr.com/photos/tiptreedave/3387667549/
For a discussion of this artwork please visit my blog:
The Crab Nebula (M1, NGC 1952, Taurus A) is a supernova remnant and pulsar wind nebula in the constellation of Taurus.
At an apparent magnitude of 8.4, comparable to that of Saturn's moon Titan, it is not visible to the naked eye but can be made out using binoculars under favourable conditions. The nebula lies in the Perseus Arm of the Milky Way galaxy, at a distance of about 6,500 light years from Earth. It has a diameter of 11 light years.
Technical:
SkyWatcher 8inch newtonian F5
EQ5 GOTO Mount
Skywatcher Synguider
Nikon D90 afocal + UHC filter
11 min 36 sec exposure
29 light frames (30+60 sec exposures, ISO 3200+ISO6400)
30 dark frames
40 bias frames
DSS + Photoshop
NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory has provided the first clear view of the faint boundary of the Crab Nebula's X-ray-emitting pulsar wind nebula. Powered by a central white pulsar, the nebula contains rapid rotation, a strong magnetic field that generates jets of matter and anti-matter, and an intense outward wind. This combination creates glowing filaments or "fingers and loops" of brightness that make the Crab Nebula so striking.
Image credit:
NASA/CXC/SAO/F.Seward.
Learn more/larger image:
www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/chandra/multimedia/photos08-16...
p.s. You can see all of our Chandra photos in the Chandra Group in Flickr at: www.flickr.com/groups/chandranasa/ We'd love to have you as a member!
Revisit the Crab Nebula. I had to do this again to compare with what the ASI 294MC camera captured.
This is 25 x 5 min lum and 15 each of 5 min RGB.
This was captured using the RC8 and QSI 683 camera.
Explanation: The first hint of what will become of our Sun was discovered inadvertently in 1764. At that time, Charles Messier was compiling a list of diffuse objects not to be confused with comets. The 27th object on Messier's list, now known as M27 or the Dumbbell Nebula, is a planetary nebula, the type of nebula our Sun will produce when nuclear fusion stops in its core. M27 is one of the brightest planetary nebulae on the sky, and can be seen toward the constellation of the Fox (Vulpecula) with binoculars. It takes light about 1000 years to reach us from M27, shown here in colors emitted by hydrogen and oxygen. Understanding the physics and significance of M27 was well beyond 18th century science. Even today, many things remain mysterious about bipolar planetary nebula like M27, including the physical mechanism that expels a low-mass star's gaseous outer-envelope, leaving an X-ray hot white dwarf.
Source of explanation: NASA APOD
In 1054 AD, during the Song dynasty, Chinese astronomers spotted a bright new star in the night sky. This newcomer turned out to be a violent explosion within the Milky Way, caused by the spectacular death of a star some 1600 light-years away. This explosion created one of the most well-studied and beautiful objects in the night sky — the Crab Nebula.
More information: www.spacetelescope.org/images/potw1644a/
Credit:
ESA/Hubble & NASA.
Acknowledgement: Judy Schmidt (Geckzilla)
6,500 light-years away lies the Crab Nebula, the remains of an exploded star. While this target has been well-studied by multiple observatories, including the Hubble Space Telescope, Webb’s infrared sensitivity and resolution offer new clues into the makeup and origins of this scene.
Learn more: go.nasa.gov/3SfQydJ
Credit: NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI, T. Temim (Princeton University)
Image description: The Crab Nebula. An oval nebula with complex structure against a black background. On the nebula’s exterior, particularly at the top left and bottom left, lie curtains of glowing red and orange fluffy material. Its interior shell shows large-scale loops of mottled filaments of yellow-white and green, studded with clumps and knots. Translucent thin ribbons of smoky white lie within the remnant’s interior, brightest toward its center. The white material follows different directions throughout, including sometimes sharply curving away from certain regions within the remnant. A faint, wispy ring of white material encircles the very center of the nebula. Around and within the supernova remnant are many points of blue, red, and yellow light.
The Crab Nebula (M1) is the remains of a star that exploded (Supernova) on July 4, 1054.
The photo was taken by a ZWO Seestar where 10-second photos were stacked for 23 minutes.
To see the Seestar goto: www.flickr.com/photos/dragonflyhunter/53480680919/in/phot...
The Crab Nebula and Zeta Tauri in a 2.5 degree wide field image. Taken under a bright urban, Bortle 6-7, sky in Austin, Texas on 2021-03-04 04:35 UT. WO RedCat 51 250mm f/4.9 telescope, Baader skyglow filter, cooled ZWO ASI 533MC Pro one shot color camera.
Total exposure of 69 minutes with 3 minute subs. Processed in PixInsight, Topaz DeNoise, and Photoshop.
This captivating new image shows the Crab Nebula in bright neon colours. The unusual image was produced by combining data from telescopes spanning nearly the entire electromagnetic spectrum, from radio waves to X-rays. The Karl G. Jansky Very Large Array (VLA) provided information about the nebula gathered in the radio regime (coloured in red). NASA’s Spitzer Space Telescope took images in the infrared (yellow). The NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope provided the images made in optical wavelengths (coloured in green). ESA’s XMM-Newton telescope observed the Crab Nebula in the ultraviolet (blue) and NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory provided the data for X-ray radiation (purple).
The Crab Nebula, located 6500 light-years from Earth in the constellation of Taurus (The Bull), is the result of a supernova explosion which was observed by Chinese and other astronomers in 1054. At its centre is a pulsar: a super-dense neutron star, spinning once every 33 milliseconds, shooting out rotating lighthouse-like beams of radio waves and visible light.
Surrounding the pulsar lies a mix of material; some of it was originally expelled from the star before it went supernova, and the rest was ejected during the explosion itself. Fast-moving winds of particles fly off from the neutron star, energising the dust and gas around it. These different layers and intricacies of the nebula can be observed in all of the different wavelengths of light.
This image of the Crab Nebula was taken with my backyard Dobsonian Teleidoscope. NOT.
For a nicer image of the same galaxy, see this article on the Hubble Space Kaleidoscope, which recently appeared in the Onion.
You can make similar images with my Kaleido-maker tool:
Original image:
www.astronomy-pictures.net/crab_nebula_hubble.jpg--
More stuff by jbum:
This is a mosaic image, one of the largest ever taken by the Hubble Space Telescope of the Crab Nebula, a six-light-year-wide expanding remnant of a star's supernova explosion. Japanese and Chinese astronomers recorded this violent event nearly 1,000 years ago in 1054, as did, almost certainly, Native Americans.
The orange filaments are the tattered remains of the star and consist mostly of hydrogen. The rapidly spinning neutron star embedded in the center of the nebula is the dynamo powering the nebula's eerie interior bluish glow. The blue light comes from electrons whirling at nearly the speed of light around magnetic field lines from the neutron star. The neutron star, like a lighthouse, ejects twin beams of radiation that appear to pulse 30 times a second due to the neutron star's rotation. A neutron star is the crushed ultra-dense core of the exploded star.
Credit: NASA, ESA, J. Hester and A. Loll (Arizona State University)
For more information, visit: science.nasa.gov/missions/hubble/a-giant-hubble-mosaic-of...
Messier 1 - The Crab Nebula in Taurus
Credit: ZTF, Giuseppe Donatiello
J2000.0 RA 05h 34m 31.94s Dec +22° 00′ 52.2″
The Crab Nebula (M1, NGC 1952, Taurus A) is a supernova remnant and pulsar wind nebula in Taurus. Corresponding to a bright supernova recorded in 1054.
At the center of the nebula lies the Crab Pulsar, a neutron star 28–30 kilometres (17–19 mi) across with a spin rate of 30.2 times per second, which emits pulses of radiation from gamma rays to radio waves.
Raw data processed from Liverpool Telescope public archive:
R,G,B:20,20,20x90s bin2, Ha:15x120s bin2
Telescope: Ritchey-Chrétien Cassegrain 2.0m@f/10
Camera: IO:O
M1, the Crab nebula.
Imaging Telescopes: Celestron C8
Imaging Camera:ZWO ASI533MM
Mount: Gemini G42 Obs+
Filters: ZWO Blue 31 mm · ZWO Green 31 mm · ZWO Luminance 31 mm · ZWO Red 31 mm
Accessories: Starizona SCT Corrector 0.63x III (SCTCORR-3)
Software: Pleiades Astrophoto PixInsight · Stefan Berg Nighttime Imaging 'N' Astronomy (N.I.N.A. / NINA)
Location: Trevinca, Valdin, Spain
The Crab Nebula (also known as M1, NGC 1952 or Taurus A). This is quite an improvement on the last attempt at imaging M1 about two years ago. This time it was possible to bring out some of the filaments that make this object so interesting - this despite using a much shorter focal length making the object appear significantly smaller. The image is cropped rather radically to show more details in the nebula so the stars appear bigger than I would prefer, but on the original they look fine.
The Crab Nebula is the remnant of a supernova observed by Chinese astronomers in 1054 AD and was visible during the day for nearly a month. It is about 6,500 light years away and can be found in the constellation of Taurus. M1 has a diameter of 11 light years and is expanding at a rate of about 1,500 kilometres per second (930 mi/s), or 0.5% of the speed of light. At the center of the nebula lies the Crab Pulsar, a neutron star 28–30 kilometres (17–19 mi) across with a spin rate of 30.2 times per second, which emits pulses of radiation from gamma rays to radio waves.
Futher information:
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crab_Nebula
www.nasa.gov/feature/goddard/2017/messier-1-the-crab-nebula
040 x 300 second exposures at Unity Gain (139) cooled to -20°C
050 x dark frames
040 x flat frames
100 x bias frames
Binning 1x1
Total integration time = 3 hours and 20 minutes
Captured with APT
Guided with PHD2
Processed in Nebulosity, Fitsworks, and Photoshop
Equipment
Telescope: Sky-Watcher Explorer-150PDS
Mount: Skywatcher EQ5
Guide Scope: Orion 50mm Mini
Guiding Camera: ZWO ASI120MC
Imaging Camera: ZWO ASI1600MC Pro
Baader Mark-III MPCC Coma Corrector
Light pollution filter
Editor's Note: Ten beautiful years of Chandra! This image from 2004 shows an explosion that sent a shock wave rumbling through space.
The Chandra image of SNR 0540-69.3 clearly shows two aspects of the enormous power released when a massive star explodes.An implosion crushed material into an extremely dense (10 miles in diameter) neutron star, triggering an explosion that sent a shock wave rumbling through space at speeds in excess of 5 million miles per hour.
The image reveals a central intense white blaze of high-energy particles about 3 light years across created by the rapidly rotating neutron star, or pulsar. Surrounding the white blaze is a shell of hot gas 40 light years in diameter that marks the outward progress of the supernova shock wave.
the pulsar is generating power at a rate equivalent to 30,000 Suns. This pulsar is remarkably similar to the famous Crab Nebula pulsar, although they are seen at vastly different distances, 160,000 light years versus 6,000 light years. Both SNR 0540-69.3 and the Crab pulsar are rotating rapidly, and are about a thousand years old. Both pulsars are pumping out enormous amounts of X-radiation and high-energy particles, and both are immersed in magnetized clouds of high-energy particles that are a few light years in diameter. Both clouds are luminous X-ray sources, and in both cases the high-energy clouds are surrounded by a filamentary web of cool gas that shows up at optical wavelengths.
However, the extensive outer shell of 50 million degree Celsius gas in SNR 0540-69.3 has no counterpart in the Crab Nebula. This difference is thought to be due to environmental factors. The massive star that exploded to create SNR 0540-69.3 was evidently in a region where there was an appreciable amount of gas. The supernova shock wave swept up and heated the surrounding gas and created the extensive hot X-ray shell. A similar shock wave presumably exists around the Crab Nebula, but the amount of available gas is apparently too small to produce a detectable amount of X-radiation.
Image credit: NASA/CXC/SAO
Read more about this image: www.chandra.harvard.edu/photo/2004/snr0540/
Read more about Chandra: www.nasa.gov/chandra
p.s. You can see all of our Chandra photos in the Chandra Group in Flickr at: www.flickr.com/groups/chandranasa/ We'd love to have you as a member!
12th of February 2017
Venus at greatest illuminated extent
(at its brightest this year)
Apparent magnitude: -4.5
Apparent diameter: 35".7 arcsec
Illuminated phase: 32%
In 1054AD, Chinese skywatchers saw an impressive sight. That year, a star in the constellation Taurus decided to go supernova, and the supernova was so bright, it was visible in broad daylight for approximately one year after the light from the initial explosion reached Earth.
Today, the remnants of that explosion is known as Messier 1, AKA the Crab Nebula.
This is a reprocessed shot of one grabbed a couple nights ago - a 50-minute total exposure integration.
Captured with a Nikon D5100 coupled to a Meade LX200 f/6.3 Wide-Field Schmidt-Cassegrain telescope.
85 30-second exposures stacked in Deep Sky Stacker, with final processing in Photoshop CS6 and Lightroom 5.5.
Just for fun I thought I'd try a zoom into this image of the Crab Nebula. It appeared very small in the frame when it was imaged but it was able to withstand rigorous cropping to show the details...but at the expense of the nice starfield. Creating a video zoom gives the best of both worlds. The canvas size in Photoshop was reduced by 1% and the frame saved, then the process was repeated on the new frame until there were 180 frames. These frames were then resized to the dimensions of the last frame and then sequenced in VitualDub and the final video finished off in Movie Maker with playback at 24fps.
The Crab Nebula (also known as M1, NGC 1952 or Taurus A). The Crab Nebula is the remnant of a supernova observed by Chinese astronomers in 1054 AD and was visible during the day for nearly a month. It is about 6,500 light years away and can be found in the constellation of Taurus. M1 has a diameter of 11 light years and is expanding at a rate of about 1,500 kilometres per second (930 mi/s), or 0.5% of the speed of light. At the center of the nebula lies the Crab Pulsar, a neutron star 28–30 kilometres (17–19 mi) across with a spin rate of 30.2 times per second, which emits pulses of radiation from gamma rays to radio waves.
Master Image:
040 x 300 second exposures at Unity Gain (139) cooled to -20°C
050 x dark frames
040 x flat frames
100 x bias frames
Binning 1x1
Total integration time = 3 hours and 20 minutes
Captured with APT
Guided with PHD2
Processed in Nebulosity, Fitsworks, and Photoshop
Video compiled with VitualDub and Movie Maker
Equipment
Telescope: Sky-Watcher Explorer-150PDS
Mount: Skywatcher EQ5
Guide Scope: Orion 50mm Mini
Guiding Camera: ZWO ASI120MC
Imaging Camera: ZWO ASI1600MC Pro
Baader Mark-III MPCC Coma Corrector
Light pollution filter
Reworked version from old H-Alpha/OIII/S2 narrowband data.
Color Assignment:
R <= H-Alpha + S2
G <= OIII
B <= 0.85 * OIII + 0.15 * H-Alpha
This is the swirly component of the Crab Nebula. Not real colors, but a colorized grayscale image of a single filter. You are probably used to seeing Hubble's version of the Crab as looking like this (click the link). Data from the same survey was used to make that image and my image here, but it is quite radically different, isn't it? This is the difference between a mediumband green filter and the narrowband filters which pick up various emissions.
Can you imagine this shape more as the carapace of a crab, now? This might be a little closer to what it looks like visually through the eyepiece of a telescope (in shape, not color, can't emphasize enough how not-real these colors are). It doesn't have legs or pincers. (It never did look much like a crab even back when William Parsons drew a picture of it, though.)
I started working on this mosaic sometime last month. I didn't work on it constantly, but it did take a while. A lot of cosmic rays had to be removed by hand. I lightened some of the empty places around the edges of the nebula. It's a small adjustment to keep your eyes from being distracted by the few hard edges.
Data came from the following proposal:
An Emission Line Survey of the Crab Nebula
All channels: WFPC2 F547M
North is up.
The Crab Nebula, the result of a bright supernova explosion seen by Chinese and other astronomers in the year 1054, is 6,500 light-years from Earth. At its center is a neutron star, a super-dense star produced by the supernova. As it rotates at about 30 times per second, its beam of radiation passes over the Earth every orbit, like a cosmic lighthouse. As the young pulsar slows down, large amounts of energy are injected into its surroundings. In particular, a high-speed wind of matter and anti-matter particles plows into the surrounding nebula, creating a shock wave that forms an expanding ring. Jets from the poles of the pulsar spew X-ray emitting matter and antimatter particles in a direction perpendicular to the ring. This image shows the X-ray data from Chandra along with infrared data from the Webb space telescope. Read more and see a timelapse movie here: chandra.si.edu/blog/node/880
Download more images: chandra.si.edu/photo/2024/timelapse/more.html
Image credits:
X-ray, Chandra: NASA/CXC/SAO;
Infrared, Webb: NASA/STScI;
Image Processing: NASA/CXC/SAO/J. Major
Image description: A cloud of material that resembles roaring fire, in shades of mostly red and orange. In the center of the nebula is a structure that resembles the shape of a spinning toy top, made of blue and white wispy clouds, resting on its side. The top-like shape is outlined by feathery shrouds of electric blue light. In the center, where the point of the toy top shape meets its flared body, is a ball of brilliant white light. This is the neutron star at the heart of the Crab Nebula. Concentric circles surround the star, as if the star was a small pebble that was dropped into a puddle of water. From the bottom of the neutron star, a jet of matter is rushing downward, like scalding h
Webb is cracking open the Crab Nebula to help scientists figure out what is inside.
The Crab is the remnant of what was once a massive star, but it’s highly unusual in composition, making scientists think its star might not have been typical either. Webb also mapped light emitted from the dust in the Crab Nebula in high resolution for the first time. Unlike other supernova remnants, which have dust concentrated at their centers, the Crab Nebula’s dust is found in the outer shell’s dense filaments.
Read more: go.nasa.gov/4c68xKE
Image credit: NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI, Tea Temim (Princeton University)
Image Description: The Crab Nebula. An oval with complex structure extends from lower left to upper right against a black background. On the oval’s exterior lie curtains of glowing yellow and green fluffy material. Its interior shell shows large-scale loops of mottled filaments of yellow-white and green, studded with clumps and knots. Translucent thin ribbons of smoky blue lie within the remnant’s interior, brightest toward its center. The blue material follows different directions throughout, including sometimes sharply curving away from certain regions within the remnant. A faint, wispy ring of blue material encircles the very center of the nebula. Around and within the supernova remnant are many points of blue, green, purple, and white light.
The Crab Nebula (catalogue designations M1, NGC 1952, Taurus A) is a supernova remnant and pulsar wind nebula in the constellation of Taurus. The nebula was first observed by John Bevis in 1731, and corresponds to a bright supernova recorded by Chinese and Arab astronomers in 1054. At the center of the nebula lies the Crab Pulsar, a rotating neutron star, which emits pulses of radiation from gamma rays to radio waves with a spin rate of 30.2 times per second. The nebula was the first astronomical object identified with a historical supernova explosion.
Scope: Vixen VC200L @ f6.4
Camera: Atik 314L + Baader Filters LRGB+Ha
Mount: HEQ5 Pro
Location: Gytheio, Greece
Date: 07-01-2010
Guiding: Skywatcher ED80 & Orion Starshoot
Exposure: 6x300 LRGB, 12x300 Ha
Software: CCDStack, Photoshop CS4
Canon 350Da (baader IR-cut filter mod)
NPZ TAL-250K (Klevtsov's system) telescope (10", 1:8.5, 1:6 with special NPZ 0.7x reducer-flattener MkII).
EQ6 PRO Syn Scan mount, guided with 75mm refractor and QHY-6 ccd.
Sub-urban area, 10km off 300k city (visual ~6.0m sky)
7.3 hours by 10min subexpositions @ iso800.
Software: Iris, FIT's Stacker Photoshop.
February 2010
Order framed print, or poster. or License for commercial use of images from my astro-gallery.
The Crab Nebula (catalogue designations M1, NGC 1952, Taurus A) is a supernova remnant and pulsar wind nebula in the constellation of Taurus.[5] Corresponding to a bright supernova recorded by Chinese astronomers in 1054, the nebula was observed later by John Bevis in 1731. At an apparent magnitude of 8.4, comparable to that of the largest moon of Saturn, it is not visible to the naked eye but can be made out using binoculars under favourable conditions.
At X-ray and gamma ray energies above 30 keV, the Crab is generally the strongest persistent source in the sky, with measured flux extending to above 10 TeV. Located at a distance of about 6,500 light-years (2 kpc) from Earth, the nebula has a diameter of 11 light years (3.4 pc, corresponding to an apparent diameter of some 7 arc minutes) and expands at a rate of about 1,500 kilometers per second (0.5% c). It is part of the Perseus Arm of the Milky Way galaxy.
At the center of the nebula lies the Crab Pulsar, a neutron star 28–30 km across,[6] which emits pulses of radiation from gamma rays to radio waves with a spin rate of 30.2 times per second. The nebula was the first astronomical object identified with a historical supernova explosion.
The nebula acts as a source of radiation for studying celestial bodies that occult it. In the 1950s and 1960s, the Sun's corona was mapped from observations of the Crab's radio waves passing through it, and in 2003, the thickness of the atmosphere of Saturn's moon Titan was measured as it blocked out X-rays from the nebula.
In 1054, Chinese astronomers took notice of a “guest star” that was, for nearly a month, visible in the daytime sky. The “guest star” they observed was actually a supernova explosion, which gave rise to the Crab Nebula, a six-light-year-wide remnant of this event. It is located 6,500 light-years from Earth in the constellation Taurus, the Crab Nebula can be spotted with a small telescope and is best observed in January.
The orange filaments are the tattered remains of the star and consist mostly of hydrogen. The blue in the filaments in the outer part of the nebula represents neutral oxygen. Green is singly ionized sulfur, and red indicates doubly ionized oxygen. These elements were expelled during the supernova explosion.
This is the first image I have captured with my new William Optics FLT 132 I got for Christmas. The weather has been terrible, so I only managed to take it outside a couple of nights this week. M1 is the first of two targets I managed to acquire with this telescope after some trial and error attempting to balance this (very large) telescope on the AM5 mount and TC40 carbon fibre tripod.
I managed to get just over 7 hours integration time over two days. I used my ZWO ASI2600MC pro colour camera, a quad band and a dual band filters.
More acquisition details in astrobin: astrob.in/6lh0u3/G/
M1, the Crab Nebula, 60 minutes of integration in LRGB with Officina Stellare 700 RC 700/5600 f 8/0 telescope, QHY 600M Pro camera, are 12 shots of which in L 3x300 seconds, in R 3x300 seconds, in G 3x300 seconds and in B 3x300 seconds, processing with Pixinsight and Photoshop. All data and shots were captured with Telescope Live. The Crab Nebula (also known as the Crab Nebula or by the catalog abbreviations M 1 and NGC 1952) is a supernova remnant visible in the constellation Taurus. Discovered in 1731 by John Bevis, the nebula is the first object in the catalogue of astronomical objects published by Charles Messier in 1774.
The nebula, now more than six light-years across, is formed by the expanding gases ejected during the explosion of Supernova 1054; the gases are expanding at a rate of 1500 km/s and possess a total mass of about 4.6±1.8 M⊙. The supernova that produced it was observed for the first time on July 4, 1054 and was recorded by Chinese and Arab astronomers of the time; its brightness was such that the apparent magnitude of the event was between −7 and −4.5, making it visible to the naked eye during the day, surpassing the apparent brightness of Venus. The Crab Nebula is located about 6500 km from the solar system; therefore the event that produced it actually took place 6 500 years before 1054, i.e. about 5400 BC.
At the center of the nebula is the Crab pulsar (also known as PSR B0531+21), a neutron star with a diameter of about 28-30 kilometers, discovered in 1968: it was the first observation of an association between pulsars and supernova remnants, a fundamental discovery for the interpretation of pulsars as neutron stars.
The Crab Nebula is often used as a calibration in X-ray astronomy: it is very bright in this band, and its flux is stable, with the exception of the pulsar itself: the latter provides a strong periodic signal that can be used to control the timing of X-ray sensors. In X-ray astronomy, "Crab" and "milliCrab" are sometimes used as units of flow. Very few X-ray sources have a brightness greater than 1 Crab.
LRGB CCD image of the Crab Nebula taken by Nik Szymanek with a Vixen VMC-260 10" scope and QSI 532 CCD camera. Essex, UK
In 1060 AD, Chinese historians recorded the appearance of a guest star. Visible at that time in full daylight, this event we now know was a supernova. An aging star blasted away its outer layers and glowed briefly with great brilliance. Today, a network of still hot hydrogen gas filaments remains. At the center of this tangle lies the core of the original progenitor star. This compact “neutron” star (marked by a small blue line) is only a few miles in diameter. Unimaginably dense, a handful of neutron star material would contain as much mass as a large mountain.
The Crab Nebula lies 6,500 light years distant within our Milky Way
This image was captured under high desert skies near Santa Fe, New Mexico, USA with a telescope of 12" aperture at f/8 and an electrically-cooled CCD camera. Multiple exposures were stacked to product the final result. Some of these exposures were taken through a narrow-band hydrogen alpha filter.
A star's spectacular death in the constellation Taurus was observed on Earth as the supernova of 1054 A.D. Now, almost a thousand years later, a super dense object -- called a neutron star -- left behind by the explosion is seen spewing out a blizzard of high-energy particles into the expanding debris field known as the Crab Nebula. X-ray data from Chandra provide significant clues to the workings of this mighty cosmic "generator," which is producing energy at the rate of 100,000 suns..
.
This composite image uses data from three of NASA's Great Observatories. The Chandra X-ray image is shown in blue, the Hubble Space Telescope optical image is in red and yellow, and the Spitzer Space Telescope's infrared image is in purple. The X-ray image is smaller than the others because extremely energetic electrons emitting X-rays radiate away their energy more quickly than the lower-energy electrons emitting optical and infrared light. Along with many other telescopes, Chandra has repeatedly observed the Crab Nebula over the course of the mission's lifetime. The Crab Nebula is one of the most studied objects in the sky, truly making it a cosmic icon.
This image shows a composite view of the Crab nebula, an iconic supernova remnant in our Milky Way galaxy, as viewed by the Herschel Space Observatory and the Hubble Space Telescope. Herschel is a European Space Agency (ESA) mission with important NASA contributions, and Hubble is a NASA mission with important ESA contributions.
A wispy and filamentary cloud of gas and dust, the Crab nebula is the remnant of a supernova explosion that was observed by Chinese astronomers in the year 1054.
The image combines Hubble's view of the nebula at visible wavelengths, obtained using three different filters sensitive to the emission from oxygen and sulphur ions and is shown here in blue. Herschel's far-infrared image reveals the emission from dust in the nebula and is shown here in red.
While studying the dust content of the Crab nebula with Herschel, a team of astronomers have detected emission lines from argon hydride, a molecular ion containing the noble gas argon. This is the first detection of a noble-gas based compound in space.
The Herschel image is based on data taken with the Photoconductor Array Camera and Spectrometer (PACS) instrument at a wavelength of 70 microns; the Hubble image is based on archival data from the Wide Field and Planetary Camera 2 (WFPC2).
The Messier Catalog, sometimes known as the Messier Album or list of Messier objects, is one of the most useful tools in the astronomy hobby. In the middle of the 18th century, the return of Halley's comet helped to prove the Newtonian theory, and helped to spark a new interest in astronomy. During this time, a French astronomer named Charles Messier began a life-long search for comets. He would eventually discover 15 of them. On August 28, 1758, while searching for comets, Messier found a small cloudy object in the constellation Taurus. He began keeping a journal of these nebulous (cloudy) objects so that they would not be confused with comets. This journal is known today as the Messier Catalog, or Messier Album. The deep sky objects in this catalog are commonly referred to as Messier objects.
This Hubble image gives the most detailed view of the entire Crab Nebula ever. The Crab is among the most interesting and well studied objects in astronomy. This image is the largest image ever taken with Hubble's WFPC2 camera. It was assembled from 24 individual exposures taken with the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope and is the highest resolution image of the entire Crab Nebula ever made.
Credit: Hubble Team and Scientist
Process: Sergio Montúfar
hst_06129_01_wfpc2_f547m_pc_drz
hst_06129_01_wfpc2_f814w_pc_drz
PseudoGreen
www.facebook.com/MilkyWayAddicted
www.flickr.com/photos/m_acubens/
NASA image release January 12, 2010
NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory reveals the complex X-ray-emitting central region of the Crab Nebula. This image is 9.8 light-years across. Chandra observations were not compatible with the study of the nebula's X-ray variations.
To read more go to: geeked.gsfc.nasa.gov/?p=4945
Credit: NASA/CXC/SAO/F. Seward et al.
NASA Goddard Space Flight Center enables NASA’s mission through four scientific endeavors: Earth Science, Heliophysics, Solar System Exploration, and Astrophysics. Goddard plays a leading role in NASA’s accomplishments by contributing compelling scientific knowledge to advance the Agency’s mission.
Follow us on Twitter
Join us on Facebook
15 x 300s, binned 2x2, 7nm Ha, C9.25 scope @ f/6.3
The Crab Nebula (catalogue designations M1, NGC 1952, Taurus A) is a supernova remnant and pulsar wind nebula in the constellation of Taurus. Corresponding to a bright supernova recorded by Chinese astronomers in 1054, the nebula was observed later by English astronomer John Bevis in 1731. At an apparent magnitude of 8.4, comparable to that of the largest moon of Saturn, it is not visible to the naked eye but can be made out using binoculars under favourable conditions.
Credit Wiki.
Michael L Hyde (c) 2014