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by halh2
Thu Jan 23, 2020 8:43 pm
Forum: The Observation Deck: Latest Sky Photography
Topic: Submissions: 2020 January
Replies: 132
Views: 167008

The Windblown Bubble Nebula (NGC 7635) in Cassiopeia

The Bubble Nebula (NGC 7635) in Cassiopeia is a visualization of the shock front produced by the supersonic wind propagating away from the massive O-star BD+60o2522 as it interacts with the surrounding interstellar medium. More than 40 times as massive as the Sun, this star is only about 2 million y...
by halh2
Thu Jan 23, 2020 8:34 pm
Forum: The Observation Deck: Latest Sky Photography
Topic: Submissions: 2020 January
Replies: 132
Views: 167008

The Interacting Galaxy Pair Arp 271

This image of Arp 271, comprising the interacting galaxy pair NGC 5426 and 5427 in Virgo, utilizes imagery acquired remotely from the 9157-ft summit of Mt. Lemmon by the Arizona SkyCenter’s 0.8-m Schulman Telescope (f/7), using an SBIG STX (KAF-16803) camera equipped with an anti-blooming gate, 2x2 ...
by halh2
Tue Jan 21, 2020 9:09 pm
Forum: The Observation Deck: Latest Sky Photography
Topic: Submissions: 2020 January
Replies: 132
Views: 167008

Re: Submissions: 2020 January

More than 30 cometary globules (CG) have been found in the Gum Nebula since the late 1970’s that generally have dense, dusty heads and long faint tails pointing away from the center of the Vela OB2 association. The intricate structure evident in this Ha-enhanced RGB image of CG4, which probably orig...
by halh2
Tue Jan 21, 2020 8:45 pm
Forum: The Observation Deck: Latest Sky Photography
Topic: Submissions: 2020 January
Replies: 132
Views: 167008

Re: Submissions: 2020 January

This narrowband image renders the southeastern portion of the Large Magellanic Cloud’s supergiant shell LMC-4 in the Hubble Color Palette. Spanning 1583 lys on a side, the 32- by 32-arcmin field shows the frothy brownish (Ha, SII) superbubble NGC 2014, itself 650- by 325-lys in extent, that was blow...
by halh2
Wed May 02, 2018 12:37 am
Forum: The Observation Deck: Latest Sky Photography
Topic: Submissions: 2018 May
Replies: 90
Views: 150248

Submissions: 2018 May

Thor's Helmet (NGC 2359) is a complex structure comprising a wind-blown bubble surrounding the Wolf-Rayet star WR7 (HD 56925) in Canis Major and wing-like appendages that emanate radially from it. Although its distance is uncertain, at the adopted distance of 11,960 lys (some estimates are twice thi...
by halh2
Tue Jan 30, 2018 1:08 am
Forum: The Observation Deck: Latest Sky Photography
Topic: Submissions: 2018 January
Replies: 100
Views: 159104

Re: Submissions: 2018 January

The Flaming Star Nebula (IC 405), embedded in the Milky Way deep in the constellation of Auriga, glows primarily in the light of atomic hydrogen excited by the massive star AE Aur as it rapidly moves through the interstellar cloud of gas and dust comprising the nebula. The wispy blue emission curling away from this 23 solar mass star resembles smoke, giving rise to the sensation that it is “on fire.” The data used to prepare this picture were collected as unguided 1-min sub-exposures at the Burke-Gaffney Observatory in Halifax by a robotic 0.61-m Planewave CDK24 reflector (f/6.5) equipped with an Apogee CG-16M CCD camera and Astrodon broadband (LRGB) and narrowband (H-alpha) filters. The camera output was binned 2x2 to provide a 2048 x 2048 px image-plane with an full field-of-view of 31.9 x 31.9 arcmins2, and a resolution of 0.94-arcsecs/binned pixel. The sub-exposures were integrated using CCDStack (CCDWare) to produce mean grey-scale images of 1.3, 1.1, 1.1, 1.8 and 2.9-hrs duration in the LRGB and H-alpha bands, respectively. The mean H-alpha image was blended in Photoshop (Adobe) with both the mean Luminance and Red images to enhance their detail. The results were high-pass filtered and combined with the mean G and B images to produce the colored image. Stellar profile shapes were corrected to reduce distortions introduced by the lack of guiding, and the final image was cropped to a spatial size of ~11.1 lys in each dimension at the assumed distance to the star.
The Flaming Star Nebula (IC 405), embedded in the Milky Way deep in the constellation of Auriga, glows primarily in the light of atomic hydrogen excited by the massive star AE Aur as it rapidly moves through the interstellar cloud of gas and dust comprising the nebula. The wispy blue emission curling away from this 23 solar mass star resembles smoke, giving rise to the sensation that it is “on fire.” The data used to prepare this picture were collected as unguided 1-min sub-exposures at the Burke-Gaffney Observatory in Halifax by a robotic 0.61-m Planewave CDK24 reflector (f/6.5) equipped with an Apogee CG-16M CCD camera and Astrodon broadband (LRGB) and narrowband (H-alpha) filters. The camera output was binned 2x2 to provide a 2048 x 2048 px image-plane with an full field-of-view of 31.9 x 31.9 arcmins2, and a resolution of 0.94-arcsecs/binned pixel. The sub-exposures were integrated using CCDStack (CCDWare) to produce mean grey-scale images of 1.3, 1.1, 1.1, 1.8 and 2.9-hrs duration in the LRGB and H-alpha bands, respectively. The mean H-alpha image was blended in Photoshop (Adobe) with both the mean Luminance and Red images to enhance their detail. The results were high-pass filtered and combined with the mean G and B images to produce the colored image. Stellar profile shapes were corrected to reduce distortions introduced by the lack of guiding, and the final image was cropped to a spatial size of ~11.1 lys in each dimension at the assumed distance to the star.
The posted image was cropped to a spatial size of 12.6 lys (W) x 13.1 lys (H) rather than to 11.1 lys in each dimension as stated originally, assuming that the star powering the emission (AE Aur) lies at a distance of 1450 lys.

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