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Nebulae

Simeis 147 (Samyang 135 mm)

Simeis 147

Simeis 147 (Sharpless Sh2-240) sometimes called The Spaghetti Nebula is a supernova remnant of a star that exploded forty thousand years ago.  It sits across the border of Taurus and Auriga and is a huge object, about six moon widths across.  It is located about 3000 light years away.  Because of its extremely low surface brightness it was only discovered as recently as 1952.  It is an exceptionally difficult object to observe visually and to have any hope of seeing it with your own eyes at the eyepiece requires extremely dark skies (Bortle 1), specialist filters, immaculate seeing and transparency and extreme dark adaption of your eyes.  This rules out almost anywhere near civilisation.  Personally speaking, I have never known any astronomer who has seen it visually.  Even with photography it requires very long exposure times to bring out any detail. Simeis 147 Image Technical Data This image was created…

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Nebulae

The California Nebula

The California Nebula – NGC 1499 – is a vast hydrogen gas emission nebula about 1000 light years away in the constellation of Perseus.  It is named as such because of its vague resemblance to the US state of California.It is a very large, faint and diffuse object, about four times the diameter of the moon.  It is almost completely invisible visually without specialist filters and was not discovered until the advent of astrophotography in 1884.  The nebula shines by reflecting the light of the bright star Markib.  It shines red because Hydrogen atoms, when excited by nearby bright sources like stars, emit or re-radiate light at the 656nm wavelength which is in the red part of the spectrum to our eyes. The California Nebula Image Technical Data The California Nebula is so large that most telescopes cannot get the nebula in the field of view, nowhere near in fact. …

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Planetary Nebulae

M27 in The Hubble “HOO” Palette (TEC140)

M27_HOO

M27 is a famous planetary nebula in the constellation of Vulpecula, The Fox. Despite its name, it has nothing whatever to do with planets, it is instead the remnants of a dying star that has cast off its outer atmosphere when nuclear reaction can no longer sustain it. Our Sun will look like this in five billion years from afar. M27 is a fine object to view through a telescope. I have also imaged M27 several times over the years. Here for example. The rendition on this page shows M27 in the HOO or Hydrogen-Oxygen-Oxygen palette which maps the Ha channel to Red and green and Blue to OIII (Oxygen 3). Planetary nebula are rich in Oxygen since it is one of the elements synthesised in the nuclear fusion processes as the star dies. M27 – The Dumbbell Nebula in Vulpecula Image Technical Data Imaged from my backyard observatory in…

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Planetary Nebulae

M57 – The Ring Nebula In Lyra – TEC140

M57

A famous planetary nebula in the Northern Hemisphere of the sky in the summer constellation of Lyra. One of four planetary nebulae in the Messier catalog of deep sky objects, the other three being M27, M76 and M97. It is visible in a small telescope as a faint ring. M57 is about 2500 light years away and it is the outer envelope shed off by a dying star, the star itself can be seen right in the middle of the nebula. The Sun will look like this from afar when it does the same in about five billion years from now. More massive stars do not die in this fashion but explode in a cataclysmic event called a supernova; M1 being one such example. In the image below, look for the ghostly outer ring surrounding the main “ring” of the nebula. M57 – The Ring Nebula Image Technical Data Imaged…

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Nebulae

M1 – The Crab Nebula TEC140

LRGB_M1

The Crab Nebula – M1 – is the expanding remains of a supernova that was seen in 1054 throughput medieval Europe, The Middle East and China.  The nebula is very distant at about 6500 light years and lies in the Perseus Arm of our galaxy, further out from The Galaxy’s core than The Sun.  It is called The Crab because William Parsons from his Irish observatory who first viewed it in 1840 thought it resembled the outline of a crab and the name has stuck.  The object was first observed in the 1731 and was linked to the Supernova of 1054 as recently as 1913.  Earlier photographic plates from the 1950’s and those taken today show a definite expansion in the nebula in the intervening 70 years. M1 – The Crab Nebula Image Technical Data Imaged from my backyard in Nottingham, UK in the winter of 2017 with my TEC…

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