Image
Details |
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Dates & Location |
December 29 & 31 2008 SMAP site at Weed, New Mexico. Elevation 7269 ft. Lat 32.8°N Long 195.5W | Catalogue identification |
Thor's
Helmet. NGC 2359 |
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| Equipment Used | Officina Stellare
RC400 at 3304 mm focal length. Paramount ME German Equatorial Mount. Camera SBIG ST-11000M.SBIG FW-8L Filter Wheel. TheSky V6 Telescope control MaxIm DL V4.53 Camera control. |
Where it is in space |
Constellation of Canis Major, in our Milky Way Galaxy. Thor's Helmet lies about 15,000 light years distant. | |
| Acquisition | Remote session using RADMIN PC control from Ravenshead, UK. LRGB exposures:- 160:80:80:80mins using 10min sub-exposures | What it is | The
bubble-like effect of the centre of this nebula is created by the unusual
"Wolf-Rayet" type star - quite a rare type of very massive star
- that can be seen near the centre of the bubble. These stars are young
and incredibly hot (25,000-50,000K) and expel their outer layers of gas
at tremendous velocities (thousands of kilometres per second) as instability
caused by the unusually high mass of the star causes massive volumes of
its atmosphere to be ejected through radiation pressure early in its life.
This particular star lives in an area of the galaxy (at least 10,000 light
years away) in the direction of the constellation of Canis Major that
contains clouds of interstellar gas and has blown a bubble of gas in its
neighbourhood This bubble is still expanding and is continually irradiated
as it does so. The intense UV and other high energy radiation also excites
and illuminates the atomic and molecular gas cloud from which it originally
formed. This particular bubble has a high oxygen content which gives rise
to the unusual green/cyan emission colouring. Another example of this
phenomena is the Bubble Nebula in the constellation of Cassiopeia, but
with mainly hydrogen emission content. |
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Processing Methods |
Images acquisition and telescope control with MaxIm DL V4.53 | |||
| Data reduction and Luminence De-convolution with CCDStack | ||||
| Master RGB image and Master Lum Image with CCDStack. Finished in PSCS2 |
