Friday 16 June 2017

The Crescent Nebula NGC6888

This amazing Nebula is about 4700 light years away in the constellation of Cygnus. The bright star inside the nebula is a massive Wolf-Rayet star called WR 136 which is nearing the end of its life. Its shedding its outer layers of hydrogen at enormous speeds (2500 km per second). The star will eventually explode as a supernova.
This is not the finished image but I just had to post my first narrow band image.
My new H-ALPHA 12NM filter, fits in front of the camera sensor and only allows a specific, wavelength (656nm) of light through. The reddish colour is produced when hydrogen is super heated. It enables the camera to capture loads more detail by blocking things like light pollution and moon glow. The individual exposure times were 15 minutes each, much longer than usual so much more detail is in the image. This image had only 75 minutes of data so I am hoping to get some more clear sky's soon. Although its black and white at the moment, this will be the red detail in the final red blue and green colour image.

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