The Bubble Nebula and M52 in Hydrogen Alpha (NGC 7635)
Characteristics:
Magnitude: about 7.0
Size: about 15'
Distance: 11,000 light years
RA: 23h 20m 42s
Dec: 61 degrees 12' 00"
Description:
The Bubble Nebula is one of only a
few "bubbles" identified in the night sky, and it forms a photogenic
partner with the open cluster M52, seen in the lower left. It is
an unusual planetary nebula named for the surrounding bubble that is
seen in the upper right portion of the photograph above, caused by gas
ejected from a massive central star. The rate of ejected gas is
so brisk that it "runs into" the wall of the surrounding nebula, thus
creating a boundary of higher density gas that forms the outer shell of
the bubble. More information about this process may be found here.
Photographic Details:
Date: July 3, 2004
Scope: Takahashi
Sky 90 at f4.5 with field flattener/focal reducer, on the G11 Losmandy
Mount.
Autoguider: SBIG STV with
e-finder.
Camera: SXV-H9
Filter: Astronomik
Ha filter (13 nm bandpass).
Exposures: 16 x 5' each, binned
1 x 1, 80
minutes total.
Conditions: Temperature 60 degrees F; below average
transparency; very humid; excellent seeing; calm.
Post-processing: No dark, bias, or flat frames used. Auto-aligned in
MaximDL; Sigma combined using RC Sigma Reject MaximDL, followed by DDP
in ImagesPlus (IP). Subsequent
levels and curves adjustments in Photoshop CS (16 bit format).
Please
note: Graphics on this website
may not be reproduced without author permission.
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