View allAll Photos Tagged planetarynebula
This photograph of the coil-shaped Helix Nebula is one of the largest and most detailed celestial images ever made. The composite picture is a seamless blend of ultra-sharp images from the Hubble Space Telescope combined with the wide view of the Mosaic Camera on the National Science Foundation's 0.9-meter telescope at Kitt Peak National Observatory near Tucson, Ariz.
The image shows a fine web of filamentary "bicycle-spoke" features embedded in the colorful red and blue ring of gas. At 650 light-years away, the Helix is one of the nearest planetary nebulae to Earth.
Credit: NASA, NOAO, ESA, the Hubble Helix Nebula Team, M. Meixner (STScI), and T.A. Rector (NRAO).
For more information, visit: science.nasa.gov/asset/hubble/iridescent-glory-of-nearby-...
CRL 618 aka the Westbrook Nebula is a protoplanetary nebula in the constellation Arguia. Imaged in high resolution by HST's now defucnt High Resolution Channel, with lower resolution UVIS narrowband imagery to provide color. ( R = F673N (SII), G = F658N (NII), B = F656N (H-alpha) )
Notes:
-North is up
-Corners are cloned data
-HRC imagery has been resampled 2x
Credit: NASA/ESA/STScI/Hypatia Alexandria
Can't say I added much to what's already been done with this nebula, but I thought I'd try and see what happened especially since I haven't tried a bipolar nebula before.
There's no wideband data available which makes me wonder how it would look with the usual f555w filter included.
I am guilty of increasing the brightness of the blue channel greatly compared to the others because I like the indigo color produced. Still, blue is OIII as usual and it's interesting that it seems to lag behind the rest of the nebula so emphasizing it makes that easier to see. I had to double check that my f502n data was really from the same year because it seemed like it was from an earlier time frame.
There are also some repeating concentric structures in this one that look sort of like light echoes. It would be easy to check if there were any images available from another year but I couldn't find any.
Red: hst_06502_01_wfpc2_f673n_wf_sci + hst_06502_01_wfpc2_f658n_wf_sci
Green: hst_06502_01_wfpc2_f656n_wf_sci + hst_06502_01_wfpc2_f631n_wf_sci
Blue: hst_06502_01_wfpc2_f502n_wf_sci
North is NOT up.
This serene view captures a portion of the planetary nebula NGC 246, also known as Caldwell 56. Planetary nebulae are named such because when they were first observed through early telescopes, they resembled planets. However, a planetary nebula is actually the final stage in the evolution of a star that is similar to our Sun. As the star reaches the end of its life, pulsations and strong stellar winds eject the star’s envelopes of gas. The hot, compact core of the star emits intense radiation, causing the gas to glow for a few tens of thousands of years before the nebula dissolves, leaving behind a white dwarf like the one at the center of Caldwell 56.
The image above was captured by Hubble’s Wide Field and Planetary Camera 2. It provides a detailed look at the structure of Caldwell 56 and its central star. These observations, and subsequent ones, were taken to better understand how the wispy filaments in a planetary nebula change over time.
Caldwell 56 is located approximately 1,600 light-years away in the constellation Cetus. It has an apparent magnitude of 8 and appears as a faint, circular glow through moderately sized telescopes. A few stars appear superimposed on the nebula. The best time to observe Caldwell 56 is during the Northern Hemisphere’s autumn and the Southern Hemisphere’s spring. It was discovered by the English astronomer William Herschel in 1785.
Credit: NASA, ESA, J. Westphal (California Institute of Technology), and K. Werner (Eberhard Karls Universitat); Processing: Gladys Kober (NASA/Catholic University of America)
For Hubble's Caldwell catalog website and information on how to find these objects in the night sky, visit:
A smaller but pretty cool nebula. Looks a lot like a goat's eye to me. I was a little surprised to find this. It's definitely a hidden treasure.
Red: hst_11185_10_wfpc2_f658n_pc_sci
Green: hst_11185_10_wfpc2_f656n_pc_sci
Blue: hst_11185_10_wfpc2_f502n_pc_sci
All channels, stars only (white): hst_11185_10_wfpc2_f588n_pc_sci
North is NOT up. It is 27° counter-clockwise from up.
The Dumbbell Nebula (also known as the apple-core nebula) in Vulpecula is a planetary nebula about 1400 ly away. Taken in two specific wavelengths of light and mapped to color, the nebula has an apple-core like red (Halpha) region, bluer outer lobes (OIII) and a fainter outer shell beyond that.
Combined in the HOO Palette with only 1 hour total.
Imaging scope: Astro-Tech 106mm Triplet
Imaging Camera: ST8300M (capture with Equinox Image)
Filters: Baader filters in FW5-8300 filter wheel
Guide scope: Astro-Tech 65 Quadruplet
Guide camera: Starfish Fishcamp (guided with PHD)
Mount: Atlas EQ-G
Calibrated in Equinox Image and processed in PixInsight.
Halpha - 6x5min (2x2)
OIII - 6x5min (2x2)
This colorful image from the Hubble Space Telescope shows the collision of two gases near a dying star. Astronomers have dubbed the tadpole-like objects in the upper right corner "cometary knots" because their glowing heads and gossamer tails resemble comets. Although astronomers have seen gaseous knots through ground-based telescopes, they have never seen so many in a single nebula.
Hubble captured thousands of these knots from a doomed star in the Helix Nebula, the closest planetary nebula to Earth at 450 light-years away in the constellation Aquarius. Each gaseous head is at least twice the size of our solar system; each tail stretches 100 billion miles, about 1,000 times the Earth's distance to the Sun. The most visible gaseous fragments lie along the inner edge of the star's ring, trillions of miles from the star at its center. The comet-like tails form a radial pattern around the star like the spokes on a wagon wheel. Astronomers have seen the spoke pattern using ground-based telescopes, but Hubble reveals for the first time the sources of these objects.
Astronomers theorize that the gaseous knots are the results of a collision between gases. The doomed star spews the hot gas from its surface, which collides with the cooler gas that it had ejected 10,000 years before. The crash fragments the smooth cloud surrounding the star into smaller, denser finger-like droplets, like dripping paint. Astronomers expect the gaseous knots, each several billion miles across, to eventually dissipate into the cold blackness of interstellar space.
This image was taken in August 1994 with Hubble's Wide Field and Planetary Camera 2. The red light depicts nitrogen emission; green, hydrogen; and blue, oxygen.
For more information please visit:
hubblesite.org/image/406/news_release/1996-13
Credit: NASA, C. Robert O'Dell and Kerry P. Handron (Rice University)
The Helix Nebula is a faint, large planetary nebula. Because of the size of this target, I used the Maksutov Cassegrain to go after this target. This scope is a 127mm aperture f12 design, yielding approximately 1500 mm focal length. As always, I use the full spectrum modified Pentax K10D camera with a peltier cooler.
This is a stack of 37 subs of 10 minutes at 400 ISO taken over the course of 3 nights. Because the target is so low on the southern horizon I have not been able to get a lot of data. Also, there have been challenges of transparency, focus, dew, and tracking.
All this is made more complex by this target being so dim that even at the above-noted sub details, the main ring structure of the nebula was not visible. Only at higher ISO settings or longer exposures does the structure appear. I was not prepared to deal with either step.
These challenges have given a lot of poor subs that I finally found a way to stack without compromising too much of the results.
Each evening's data was calibrated with Maxim as a set. The resutls were debayered and then stacked in Pix Insight. The rest of the processing included some white balance, DBE, ATrous Wavelet, and a lot of stretching. There's a lot of residual background noise. Not much I can do about these without more subs.
While I'd like to get more data, there's a storm coming and it's not likely that I'll get another chance to add more information on this target until next year.
Here's the data on the plate solve:
Referentiation Matrix (Gnomonic projection = Matrix * Coords[x,y]):
+0.000026298746 -0.000210188757 +0.170099721975
+0.000210359351 +0.000026359299 -0.360611368341
+0.000000000000 +0.000000000000 +1.000000000000
Resolution ........ 0.763 arcsec/pix
Rotation .......... 97.159 deg
Focal ............. 1460.00 mm
Pixel size ........ 5.40 um
Field of view ..... 40' 23.0" x 25' 38.0"
Image center ...... RA: 22 29 38.160 Dec: -20 48 21.19
Image bounds:
top-left ....... RA: 22 30 21.938 Dec: -21 09 59.06
top-right ...... RA: 22 30 43.145 Dec: -20 29 53.52
bottom-left .... RA: 22 28 32.909 Dec: -21 06 47.33
bottom-right ... RA: 22 28 54.590 Dec: -20 26 42.64
Another planetary nebula. Very similar to NGC 6826 but it's interesting to compare the subtle differences. Why are they so similar? Why are some parts not similar? Are they aligned for some reason?
Processing notes: Most of the nebula was on three filters but the edges were cut off around the outer part of the fainter spheroid. Something like this but I used a different set for the WFPC2-PC squares. There's more than one way to process a nebula...
Red: hst_08773_13_wfpc2_f658n_pc_sci
Green: hst_08773_13_wfpc2_f555w_pc_sci
Blue: hst_08773_13_wfpc2_f502n_pc_sci
Extra bits around the edge that were missing from the PC: hst_10822_02_wfpc2_f547m_wf_sci
North is up.
NGC 2371 is a little odd in a couple of ways to me.
First, it has two entries in the New General Catalogue because astronomers (specifically, William Herschel) thought it was two objects at the time.
Second, for processing, the HLA only has one channel worth of data for the left side which is why it appears dimmer and monochrome in my version. I also processed it slightly differently than I usually do because I liked the look with the f656n filter in the red channel along with the f658n. Usually I like those two to be in separate channels.
Anyway, it's a picturesque nebula. It has a very soft appearance which I quite enjoy. HubbleSite has a nice article on the nebula if you are interested in learning more about it.
Red: hst_11093_03_wfpc2_f656n_wf_sci + hst_11093_03_wfpc2_f658n_wf_sci
Green: hst_06119_08_wfpc2_f555w_wf_sci + hst_11093_03_wfpc2_f555w_wf_sci + some f555w ACS/WFC data for the center (jb5724020)
Blue: hst_11093_03_wfpc2_f502n_wf_sci
North is NOT up.
Another nice little planetary nebula with only one channel available. I colorized it.
All channels: hst_08345_59_wfpc2_f656n_pc_sci
North is up.
Subject: M27 -- Dumbbell Nebula
Image FOV = 192 minutes by 144 minutes (3.2 degrees by 2.4 degrees)
Image Scale = 8 arc-second/pixel
Date: 2008/08/21 and 2008/08/22
Location: near Halcottsville, NY
Exposure: 19 x 5 minutes = 1h35m total exposure, ISO800, f/4.8
Filter: Baader Astronomik UHC (RGB)
Camera: Hutech-modified Canon 30D
Telescope: SV80S 80mm f/6 + TV TRF-2008 0.8X reducer/flattener = 384mm FL, f/4.8
Mount: Astro-Physics AP900
Guiding: ST-402 autoguider and SV66 guidescope. MaximDL autoguiding software using 6-second guide exposures
Processing: Raw conversion and calibration with ImagesPlus (dark frames, bias frames, and flat frames); Aligning and combing with Registar; Levels adjustment, cropping/resizing, JPEG conversion with Photoshop CS. No sharpening or noise reduction.
Remarks:
Aug 21 : temperature at end 55F, SQM-L reading 20.75 at start, 20.08 at end (gibbous moonrise);
Aug 22 : temperature at end 55F, SQM-L reading at start, 21.41, 21.45 in middle (moon below horizon), 20.70 at end (gibbous moonrise).
Here's another little planetary with two very close filters (f658n & f656n) but there is significant enough distinction between them to generate a more colorful image. I did end up boosting the saturation a bit with an adjustment layer. I usually don't do that.
Small amounts of data is missing from the corners.
Red: hst_08345_48_wfpc2_f658n_pc_sci
Green: Pseudo
Blue: hst_08345_48_wfpc2_f656n_pc_sci
North is up.
Lying in the constellation of Vulpecula, M27, also known as the Dumbbell Nebula, is a planetary nebula that lies about 1,360 light years away. It was formed by the ejection of matter from a dying star. This was the first planetary nebula discovered by Charles Messier in 1764.
This is a difficult subject to image from Sydney. Imaging was done between 20 and 33 degrees altitude. Consequently, seeing and transparency were always less than optimal while gathering the data. Even so, the faint extension of nebulosity is visible.
Full Resolution: www.pbase.com/gailmarc/image/146168301/original
This is a 11 hr LHaRGB (180, 210, 90, 90, 90) image. Lum subs were 15 mins, Ha subs were 30 mins unbinned.
FOV is 36.1 x 23.8 arcmins @ 1.05 arcsec/pixel.
Takahashi TOA-150 refractor @ F11.7 (FL=1760mm) using an SBIG STL 11000M camera
Much large image in my blog: www.astroanarchy.blogspot.fi/2013/05/dead-stars-society-c...
I made a poster format presentation out of my photos of exploded stars. In this collection, there are two types of dead stars, Planetary Nebulae and Supernova remnants. Images are not in scale.
Individual images, with some information, can be found from my portfolio: astroanarchy.zenfolio.com/
The Helix is a "planetary" nebula - an expanding shell of gas which was ejected from a red giant star nearing the end of its life. The central star is then destined to become a white dwarf.
The Helix lies 700 light years distant within our Milky Way in the constellation of Aquarius.
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.
The tracking was awful, but since it's the first time I've ever photographed this object I thought I'd post it for future comparisons.
Oh no you didn't cut off that nebula and create a terrible tangent at the edge of the composition. ...Yep, you did. Oh, Hubble.
Composition aside, NGC 2440 is a lovely nebula. Cloudy tendrils seem to reach vainly toward their progenitor but they are destined to be blown away and eventually dissipate into the vacuum of space; such a fleeting vision. Maybe one day the matter shed from this star will find its way into another star, planet or some living being. No one can say for sure.
Red: hst_11090_04_wfpc2_f658n_wf_sci + hst_11090_04_wfpc2_f675w_wf_sci
Green: hst_11090_04_wfpc2_f656n_wf_sci + hst_11090_04_wfpc2_f555w_wf_sci
Blue: hst_11090_04_wfpc2_f502n_wf_sci + hst_11090_04_wfpc2_f439w_wf_sci
North is NOT up.
A jewel of the southern sky, NGC 3132 has captivated my imagination. Searching through the HLA I found a rarely used* filter, f631n, which is neutral oxygen (OI), added an extra dimensionality to the nebula by strongly highlighting the rims of the cloud-like formations. The details pierce all the way through the depths of the the nebula, making it appear much rounder, like looking into a cosmic womb.
*When I say this I mean I don't see it very often for the planetary nebulas in the archive. I don't mean that it's rarely used overall.
Red: hst_08390_01_wfpc2_f658n_wf_sci
Yellow: hst_06221_02_wfpc2_f631n_wf_sci
Green: hst_08390_01_wfpc2_f555w_wf_sci
Blue: hst_08390_01_wfpc2_f502n_wf_sci
North is NOT up
Out of this world public domain images from NASA. All original images and many more can be found from the NASA Image Library
Higher resolutions with no attribution required can be downloaded: www.rawpixel.com/board/418580/nasa
Taken from New Mexico Skies Observatory using an SBIG STL-6303 camera and 51-cm RCOS telescope on a Software Bisque PME 1 Mount
LRGB
LINK
Other images from this series:
1. www.flickr.com/photos/jbrimacombe/51912817758/
2. www.flickr.com/photos/jbrimacombe/51913339650/
3. www.flickr.com/photos/jbrimacombe/51912722131/
4. www.flickr.com/photos/jbrimacombe/51912817498/
5. www.flickr.com/photos/jbrimacombe/51911758022/
6. www.flickr.com/photos/jbrimacombe/51911757837/
NOTE
1. The marked blue star in the geometric centre is the probable source of the nebula.
2. The Soap Bubble Nebula, or PN G75.5+1.7, is a planetary nebula in the constellation Cygnus, near the Crescent Nebula (NGC 6888). It was discovered by amateur astronomer Dave Jurasevich using an Astro-Physics 160 mm refractor telescope with which he imaged the nebula on June 19, 2007 and on July 6, 2008. The nebula was later independently noted and reported to the International Astronomical Union by Keith B. Quattrocchi and Mel Helm who imaged PN G75.5+1.7 on July 17, 2008. The nebula measures 260″ in angular diameter with a central star that has a J band magnitude of 19.45.
Can't sleep, black holes will eat me...
Red: hst_08773_02_wfpc2_f658n_pc_drz
Green: hst_07501_02_wfpc2_f555w_pc_drz
Blue: hst_08773_02_wfpc2_f502n_pc_drz
North is NOT up.
There’s just one Ring Nebula to rule them all. Now Webb has turned its eye on this popular target, revealing the complexity of its structure in unprecedented detail — as well the possibility that the dying star at its center has a companion.
Shown here are two views of this nebula, one taken by Webb’s Near-Infrared Camera (NIRCam) on the left, and one taken by its Mid-Infrared Instrument (MIRI) on the right. MIRI provided the sharpest and clearest view of the faint halo outside the bright ring. Physical features within suggest there may be a companion star helping to sculpt the layers thrown off by the dying star.
The Ring Nebula is a “planetary nebula,” originally named for having a planet-like appearance through small telescopes. In actuality, planetary nebulae are the remains of a star’s death throes. And while the Ring Nebula resembles a ring when seen face-on, it's more of a donut shape (a torus) when viewed in three dimensions!
Learn more: blogs.nasa.gov/webb/2023/08/21/webb-reveals-intricate-det...
This image: This new image of the Ring Nebula from Webb’s MIRI (Mid-InfraRed Instrument) reveals particular details in the concentric features in the outer regions of the nebulae’s ring. Roughly ten concentric arcs located just beyond the outer edge of the main ring. The arcs are thought to originate from the interaction of the central star with a low-mass companion orbiting at a distance comparable to that between the Earth and Pluto.
Credit: ESA/Webb, NASA, CSA, M. Barlow (University College London), N. Cox (ACRI-ST), R. Wesson (Cardiff University)
Image description: Webb’s mid-infrared view of the Ring Nebula appears as a distorted doughnut. The nebula’s inner cavity hosts shades of red and orange, while the detailed ring transitions through shades of yellow in the inner regions and blue/purple in the outer region. The ring’s inner region has distinct filament elements. Stars are scattered among the dark background, appearing mostly as dots, though some have short, stubby diffraction spikes.
I combined data from the WF chips and the PC chip to create a wider view of NGC 6326. This one seems to lack any major symmetry. It also lacks the more clearly demarcated shells that other planetary nebulas have, which I sometimes wonder about. Why do some have them and others do not? I would like to see if the H-alpha (f658n, red) structures extend to the right or top of the nebula just as they do to the left and below but this is as far as the data goes.
Red: hst_08773_11_wfpc2_f658n_wf_sci + hst_08773_11_wfpc2_f658n_pc_sci
Green: hst_07501_14_wfpc2_f555w_wf_sci + hst_07501_14_wfpc2_f555w_pc_sci
Blue: hst_08773_11_wfpc2_f502n_wf_sci + hst_08773_11_wfpc2_f502n_pc_sci
North is NOT up, it's 16° counter-clockwise from up.
Nebulosa de la Hélice. Nebulosa planetaria situada en la constelación de Acuario. // Helix Nebula. Planetary nebula in the constellation Aquarius.
Date: 2019/7/27 and 2019/8/2
Place: Gran Canaria, Canary Islands.
Mount: NEQ6.
Camera: ASI1600MM.
Telescope: Sky-Watcher 150PDS f/5.
Exposures: 67 x 300 seconds.
Guiding: PHD, SX Lodestar.
Processing: PixInsight 1.8.
NGC-246 A dying star!
This is a Sun like star that has blown off its Outer Atmosphere....
it was discovered by William Herschel in 1785.
NGC-246 is a planetary nebula in the constellation Cetus, also nicknamed the Skull nebula, . It lies approximately 6° north-northeast of the 2nd-magnitude star Beta Ceti and about 1.5° south-southeast of 4.8-magnitude Phi1 Ceti.
The nebula is relatively small and dim (~11th-magnitude). In a small telescope the nebula's feeble light is almost overpowered by the foreground stars superimposed on it. Larger telescopes show the nebula more clearly, especially with an oxygen III filter.
NGC 246 and it's central star (a white dwarf) is worth monitoring. In 1930, its photographic magnitude was as bright as 9th magnitude. In 1969 it dipped to 11.2 and today it shines at about 12th magnitude. This star is also is part of a binary pair.
The complex braided structure of NGC-246, the blue outer ring, visible in my 90 second image are caused by high-velocity gases pushing outward from the
hot (~200,000 K) central star which contributes to the visible chaos.
Distance is 1600 light years,
4.6 x 4.1 arc-minutes in size,
Visual Magnitude is 10.9
Details: 08-28-2014
Unmodified Canon 6D DSLR & at the Prime Focus of my Home-Built 16" Diameter Newtonian Scope,
a single 90 second test exposure, at ISO 3200. No filters
Best Regards,
John Chumack
Trying to emphasize subtle differences in color.
hst_11956_05_wfpc2_f469n_wf_drz
hst_11956_05_wfpc2_f656n_wf_drz
hst_11956_05_wfpc2_f658n_wf_drz
hst_11956_05_wfpc2_f673n_wf_drz
M27 as seen overnight on June 18, 2012. I continued my efforts to improve my technique for guiding while the telescope is set up in the back yard.
For this evening's experiments, I added an additional counterweight to the system - giving 5 lbs on the string. This has the effect of giving a stronger east bias. I was hoping that this would eliminate the RA drift problems I've seen. It seems to work well - the only real drift is in DEC.
Also, what I did prior to this shot was tighten up the DEC axis. I inserted a single belleville washer on the axis of the worm gear to assist in taking up lateral play. The effect is that DEC is now much tighter without having to bind on the ring gear. The washer will provide a small amount of spring to the system to act as a pre-load for system as well.
What I did not do was limit Maxim to only guiding in one direction in DEC. I've done this with PHD quite a bit but in this case, I was trying to figure out if the Maxim stiction and backlash settings were enough to fix the problem.
This is a stack of 31 lights on this target. Individual lights are 10 minutes at 400 ISO. Captured with a full spectrum mod Pentax K10D camera with the Baader Moon and Skyglow filter. Scope used was the Orion 127mm Maksutov Cassegrain. Guided with Maxim with the SSAG on a ST80 all on a Losmandy GM8. These are all from one night. Meridian flip was at about 2 am time and I let it keep running until I got up in the morning.
Stacked in DSS from a collection of 39 total lights with 85% kept. I did a 2x custom frame. I thought it might show some of the local detail better. Not sure if it worked well. Maybe a drizzle would have been good since there are so many lights.
In PI: DBE, Masked Stretch, a run of curves, and ACDNR used to try to improve the image. There's a lot of brown in the background - mostly because of being in the city. I may have pushed this processing a little bit too far given the heavy local light pollution.
Image Plate Solver script version 1.51
============================
Referentiation Matrix (Gnomonic projection = Matrix * Coords[x,y]):
-0.000022742430 +0.000210832794 -0.115733286451
-0.000210969707 -0.000022616320 +0.220275140133
+0.000000000000 +0.000000000000 +1.000000000000
Resolution ........ 0.764 arcsec/pix
Rotation .......... -83.842 deg
Focal ............. 1458.61 mm
Pixel size ........ 5.40 um
Field of view ..... 24' 47.5" x 16' 38.8"
Image center ...... RA: 19 59 39.826 Dec: +22 43 07.21
Image bounds:
top-left ....... RA: 19 59 09.665 Dec: +22 56 20.02
top-right ...... RA: 19 58 58.245 Dec: +22 31 40.38
bottom-left .... RA: 20 00 21.523 Dec: +22 54 33.36
bottom-right ... RA: 20 00 09.890 Dec: +22 29 54.04
NGC 5315 is another quite small but also quite wonderful planetary nebula.
Red: hst_11090_03_wfpc2_f675w_pc_sci + hst_11090_03_wfpc2_f673n_pc_sci + hst_11090_03_wfpc2_f658n_pc_sci
Green: hst_11090_03_wfpc2_f656n_pc_sci + hst_11090_03_wfpc2_f555w_pc_sci
Blue: hst_11090_03_wfpc2_f502n_pc_sci + hst_11090_03_wfpc2_f439w_pc_sci
And now, back to our regularly scheduled planetary nebula. This nebula is quite small but the details came out nicely.
Red: hst_08390_03_wfpc2_f658n_pc_sci + hst_11122_09_wfpc2_f658n_pc_sci + hst_06119_23_wfpc2_f814w_pc_sci
Green: hst_08390_03_wfpc2_f555w_pc_sci
Blue: hst_11122_09_wfpc2_f502n_pc_sci
This is a globular cluster, a collection of a bout a million stars all held together by their own gravity. It's from Hubble, and is a combination of two images: one visible light, one near-infrared.
An image of the Helix Nebula, a target we've been wanting to capture for years but only now got the chance to. It is not an easy target because from this location it is very low in the sky and isn't visible for very long. To shoot it from North London means pointing a telescope straight into the glow of London light pollution and taking long exposures while the object disappears behind every tree and building. The subs looked terrible so I was amazed that anything at all came out after stacking. The final image required a lot of processing but I quite like the end result even if it is a bit on the noisy side.
The Helix Nebula (also known as NGC 7293 or Caldwell 63) is a planetary nebula located approximately 655 light years away in the constellation Aquarius. It is one of the closest to the Earth of all the bright planetary nebulae. Planetary nebulae are formed when intermediate to low-mass stars shed their outer layers near the end of their evolution. The remaining central stellar cores become white dwarf stars which cause the previously expelled gases to brightly fluoresce.
016 x 300 second exposures at Unity Gain (139) cooled to -20°C
054 x dark frames
020 x flat frames
100 x bias frames (subtracted from flat frames)
Binning 1x1
Total integration time = 1 hour and 20 minutes
Captured with APT
Guided with PHD2
Processed in Nebulosity Lightroom 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
Here is a reprocess my first ever LRGB CCD image taken with My Atik One 6.0 with Atik GP off axis guider using an Equinox 80 with a Televue 0.8x FR/FF. The image consists of
4 No 300s luminance Subs
4 No 120s of Red Green & Blue subs.
False-color narrowband composite of NGC 6826 taken by Hubble's Wide Field Planetary Camera II instrument in December of 2007.
NGC 6826 is located in the constellation of Cygnus and is referred to as the "Blinking Planetary". Through a small telescope, the brightness of the central star in the nebula will overwhelm the much fainter surrounding nebula. Use of averted vision will cause the nebula to appear to "blink" in and out of view.
A characteristic of this nebula are fast moving jets of gas known as Fast Low-Ionization Emission Regions, or FLIERs, highlighted in red here. These jets of material move much faster than the surrounding nebula, indicating that they are much younger than the nebula itself.
Processing Details:
Narrowband bicolor composite of Hydrogen Alpha (Hα) and Doubly Ionized Oxygen (O-III) filter images. Images assigned to a HOO palette. With Hα assigned to the red channel and O-III assigned to the blue and green channels. Resulting image closely approximates natural color in nebulae, though it does tend to throw star colors off.
Filters Used:
O-III: WFPC2 - F502N
Hα: WFPC2 - F658N
Credit: NASA/ESA/STScI/Hypatia Alexandria
Proposal: Bruce Balick
"Expanding PNe: Distances and Hydro Models"
Taken from New Mexico Skies Observatory using an SBIG STL-6303 camera and 51-cm RCOS telescope on a Software Bisque PME 1 Mount
LRGB
LINK
Other images from this series:
1. www.flickr.com/photos/jbrimacombe/51912817758/
2. www.flickr.com/photos/jbrimacombe/51913339650/
3. www.flickr.com/photos/jbrimacombe/51912722131/
4. www.flickr.com/photos/jbrimacombe/51912817498/
5. www.flickr.com/photos/jbrimacombe/51911758022/
6. www.flickr.com/photos/jbrimacombe/51911757837/
NOTE
The Soap Bubble Nebula, or PN G75.5+1.7, is a planetary nebula in the constellation Cygnus, near the Crescent Nebula (NGC 6888). It was discovered by amateur astronomer Dave Jurasevich using an Astro-Physics 160 mm refractor telescope with which he imaged the nebula on June 19, 2007 and on July 6, 2008. The nebula was later independently noted and reported to the International Astronomical Union by Keith B. Quattrocchi and Mel Helm who imaged PN G75.5+1.7 on July 17, 2008. The nebula measures 260″ in angular diameter with a central star that has a J band magnitude of 19.45.
Sh2-174, or Valentine Rose Nebula, is a planetary nebula that can be observed in the constellation Cepheus. It is one of the northernmost planetary nebulae in the sky and can only be seen in the Northern Hemisphere. It is visible in long-exposure photographs taken with a powerful amateur telescope. Its position means that it can be observed throughout the year.
In the past, this nebula was classified as a general emission nebula and there was no evidence of ongoing star formation. The star that ionized the gas in the nebula was not even known. However, it was speculated in the 1990s that it was a planetary nebula, in which the central star was expanding out of the gaseous envelope it created. The size of the nebula was too small to be an H II region, but similar to a normal planetary nebula.
For me and Alessandro Pensato, this image represented the biggest challenge ever in astrophotography. Shooting was complex both due to the low luminosity of the subject, which can hardly be guessed with a 1200-second shot, and due to the geographical position which places the nebula between 34 and 47 degrees above the horizon. In fact, it required two years of summer shooting (between 2022 and 2023) for a total of 100 hours of integration and I don't know how many more (perhaps as many) for the processing of all this data.
Technical data:
2xGSO RC8 @ 1120mm
2xQHYCCD QHY183M
Sky-Watcher EQ6 belt mod + iOptron CEM70
Optolong LRGB + Baader LRGB 31mm + IDAS LP2 v2
2xQHYCCD CFW3
2xPlayerOne Sedna-M camera guides
HAS 122x1200
OIII 108x1200
L 231x300
RGB 96x180 bin2
total stacking 100 hours and 43 minutes
Edited Hubble Space Telescope image of the planetary nebula NGC 6818.
Original caption: This colourful bubble is a planetary nebula called NGC 6818, also known as the Little Gem Nebula. It is located in the constellation of Sagittarius (The Archer), roughly 6000 light-years away from us. The rich glow of the cloud is just over half a light-year across — humongous compared to its tiny central star — but still a little gem on a cosmic scale. When stars like the Sun enter retirement, they shed their outer layers into space to create glowing clouds of gas called planetary nebulae. This ejection of mass is uneven, and planetary nebulae can have very complex shapes. NGC 6818 shows knotty filament-like structures and distinct layers of material, with a bright and enclosed central bubble surrounded by a larger, more diffuse cloud. Scientists believe that the stellar wind from the central star propels the outflowing material, sculpting the elongated shape of NGC 6818. As this fast wind smashes through the slower-moving cloud it creates particularly bright blowouts at the bubble’s outer layers. Hubble previously imaged this nebula back in 1997 with its Wide Field Planetary Camera 2, using a mix of filters that highlighted emission from ionised oxygen and hydrogen (opo9811h). This image, while from the same camera, uses different filters to reveal a different view of the nebula. A version of the image was submitted to the Hubble’s Hidden Treasures image processing competition by contestant Judy Schmidt.
The majestic preplanetary nebula Frosty Leo was imaged by Hubble's ACS/HRC (Advanced Camera for Surveys / High Resolution Channel) so you could say this is as good as it gets! The only thing that could make this picture better would be some narrowband data.
One thing to note is that the upper right part of the nebula was cut off in the ACS/HRC image. Fortunately, there was some older data from the venerable WFPC2 which enabled me to render the nebula's portrait complete.
Red: HST_9463_78_ACS_HRC_F814W_sci + hst_06816_03_wfpc2_f606w_wf_sci
Green: Pseudo
Blue: HST_9463_78_ACS_HRC_F606W_sci + hst_06816_03_wfpc2_f606w_wf_sci
North is up.
Glowing like a multi-faceted jewel, the planetary nebula IC 418 lies about 2,000 light-years from Earth in the direction of the constellation Lepus.
A planetary nebula represents the final stage in the evolution of a star similar to our Sun. The star at the center of IC 418 was a red giant a few thousand years ago, but then ejected its outer layers into space to form the nebula, which has now expanded to a diameter of about 0.1 light-year. The stellar remnant at the center is the hot core of the red giant, from which ultraviolet radiation floods out into the surrounding gas, causing it to fluoresce. Over the next several thousand years, the nebula will gradually disperse into space, and then the star will cool and fade away for billions of years as a white dwarf. Our own Sun is expected to undergo a similar fate, but fortunately this will not occur until some 5 billion years from now.
Credit: NASA and The Hubble Heritage Team (STScI/AURA);
Acknowledgment: Dr. Raghvendra Sahai (JPL) and Dr. Arsen R. Hajian (USNO)
For more information, visit: science.nasa.gov/asset/hubble/the-spirograph-nebula-ic-418/
For nearly three years, I swore I would never do any deep sky photography during periods of intense moonlight - simply because I didn't think it was really possible to catch the selected target and acquire enough raw data to have a usable image. Well, last night sure proved me wrong!!
Last night, I took the telescope out mainly to shoot the moon. In the process, I had a fit of curiosity, and wondered if I could do any deep sky stuff. Sure enough, test exposures on the Dumbbell Nebula were showing a lot of nebulosity despite a 97% illuminated moon.
At that point, I set my sights on the Blinking Planetary nebula in Cygnus, and went to town. I am very pleased with the results after processing!!!
39 30-second exposures captured with a Nikon D5100, stacked in Deep Sky Stacker, calibrated with 45 dark frames. Further processing done in Adobe Photoshop CS6 and Lightroom 5.5
Deep Sky Stacker unfortunately removes the EXIF data in the stacking process.
Visually, NGC 6891 seems fairly simple. I can only see some very small knots of H-alpha. One of them is easy to spot. It's a very small, red dot near the left edge of the outer halo of material. I almost cleaned it up, thinking it was a cosmic ray.
Red: hst_08390_09_wfpc2_f658n_pc_sci
Green: hst_08390_09_wfpc2_f555w_pc_sci
Blue: hst_08390_09_wfpc2_f502n_pc_sci
North is NOT up.
This object was recently featured as picture of the week at spacetelescope.org. You should check it out if you haven't already. To me it looks like an asymmetrical blob but there are some vaguely symmetrical properties to it. The two brightest outer sections of the cloud and the three dark holes flanking either side of the central star are the easiest to spot.
Red: hst_06119_11_wfpc2_f814w_pc_sci
Green: Pseudo
Blue: hst_06119_11_wfpc2_f555w_pc_sci
NGC 5307 looks a little strange to me. The nebula shrouding the central star has an interesting, almost nacreous appearance. It reminds me of the inside of a shell of abalone. The whole thing is kind of blurry. Is that because the nebula is dissipating and no longer so sharply defined?
The usual knots of bright, glowing H-alpha are once again red in appearance.
In blue, some He II (f469n) data seemed quite specifically concentrated in the core of the nebula so I emphasized it quite a bit even though it doesn't glow especially brightly.
I went ahead and used the data labeled "heritage" in the HLA. The label makes me wonder if someone else deserves credit for doing some processing before me. Then again, I've been wondering just how much of the data in the archive is automatically processed and how much is done by humans. It seems like a rather thankless job if there are humans doing much of the work.
Red: hlsp_heritage_hst_wfpc2_n5307_f675w_v1_sci_sci + hlsp_heritage_hst_wfpc2_n5307_f658n_v1_sci_sci
Green: hlsp_heritage_hst_wfpc2_n5307_f656n_v1_sci_sci + hlsp_heritage_hst_wfpc2_n5307_f555w_v1_sci_sci
Blue: hlsp_heritage_hst_wfpc2_n5307_f502n_v1_sci_sci + hlsp_heritage_hst_wfpc2_n5307_f469n_v1_sci_sci + hlsp_heritage_hst_wfpc2_n5307_f439w_v1_sci_sci
This one actually has some propeller shaped material streaming out from it. It's only just barely visible above the noise for this image though and they extend beyond the boundaries of the image. See them clearly here.
Red: hst_06119_27_wfpc2_f814w_pc_sci
Green: Pseudo
Blue: hst_06119_27_wfpc2_f555w_pc_sci
North is NOT up.
Finally, I found a planetary nebula that also has some data for the faint halo surrounding it. A lot of planetary nebulas have these but images of them tend to only show the brightest parts while omitting the halo. (Note that's not a covert criticism, to that particular image. I only linked to it as an example.)
Red: hst_11093_02_wfpc2_f658n_pc_sci
Green: hst_11093_02_wfpc2_f656n_pc_sci
Blue: hst_11093_02_wfpc2_f502n_pc_sci
Halo luminosity: hst_06347_20_wfpc2_f656n_wf_sci
North is up.
Subject: M27 -- Dumbbell Nebula
Image FOV = 1 degree square
Image Scale = 3.45 arc-second/pixel (100% crop -- no downsizing from 30D image)
Date: 2008/08/21 and 2008/08/22
Location: near Halcottsville, NY
Exposure: 19 x 5 minutes = 1h35m total exposure, ISO800, f/4.8
Filter: Baader Astronomik UHC (RGB)
Camera: Hutech-modified Canon 30D
Telescope: SV80S 80mm f/6 + TV TRF-2008 0.8X reducer/flattener = 384mm FL, f/4.8
Mount: Astro-Physics AP900
Guiding: ST-402 autoguider and SV66 guidescope. MaximDL autoguiding software using 6-second guide exposures
Processing: Raw conversion and calibration with ImagesPlus (dark frames, bias frames, and flat frames); Aligning and combing with Registar; Levels adjustment, cropping/resizing, JPEG conversion with Photoshop CS. No sharpening or noise reduction.
Remarks:
Aug 21 : temperature at end 55F, SQM-L reading 20.75 at start, 20.08 at end (gibbous moonrise);
Aug 22 : temperature at end 55F, SQM-L reading at start, 21.41, 21.45 in middle (moon below horizon), 20.70 at end (gibbous moonrise).
Visually, there's not much I can think of to say about this. If you want, you could read about it, though. And then you could say, "Ah, so that is what a super-metal-rich planetary nebula looks like."
Again, two sets of data were three years apart, so if you are a very keen observer you may notice slight color fringing.
Red: hst_08594_03_wfpc2_f656n_pc_sci + hst_06119_94_wfpc2_f814w_pc_sci
Green: hst_06119_94_wfpc2_f555w_pc_02_sci
Blue: hst_08594_03_wfpc2_f502n_pc_sci
North is NOT up.