Dates & Location |
October 13th - 21st 2011 using the SMAP site at Weed, New Mexico. Elevation 7269 ft. Lat 32.8°N Long 195.5W | Catalogue identification |
The Cygnus Bubble planetary nebula, |
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Equipment Used | Officina Stellare RC400 at 3304mm focal length |
Where it is in space |
Dave Jurasevich of the Mount Wilson Observatory in California first discovered the "Cygnus Bubble" while recording images of the region on 6 July 2008. A few days later, amateur astronomers Mel Helm and Keith Quattrocchi were also able to confirm it. The Bubble is extremely faint in the light of Hydrogen-Alpha and almost invisible in natural RGB light. It lies 41 arcmin south-east of the Crescent Nebula NGC 6888 in the constellation of Cygnus and is within our own Milky Way galaxy. |
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Acquisition | Remote
session using RADMIN PC control from Ravenshead, UK. |
What it is | This object was discovered very recently - later than most modern catalogues were updated. It is thought to be a very symmetrical planetary nebula (expanding shell of a supernova star). It's diameter has been calculated at almost exactly 4 arc minutes, but its true dimensions are not yet known. |
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Processing Methods |
Image acquisition and telescope control with CCDSoft V5. Remote acquisition sequence program CCDAutoPilot. | |||
Data reduction and Luminence De-convolution with CCDStack. | ||||
Master RGB image and Master Ha Images prepared and finished with Photoshop CS2. Final LRGB image using PhotoShop CS2 |