Abell 24

Dim Planetary Nebula in Canis Minor

Uploaded 1/9/06

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This extremely low surface brightness nebula can just barely be detected visually with a 20 inch telescope using an OIII filter, and a dark high altitude Arizona dark sky site. The primary reason besides being spread out over 6 arcminutes of sky, is that the dominant wavelength in this nebula is a very deep crimson red, with little radiation in either the green OIII or blue Hb emission lines. This G2V balanced image shows us a very deeply colored nebula, with two bright knots on either side of a deep blue 17.1 magnitude central star. The structure resembles the Helix nebula in form, but of course considerably fainter.

Sharp eyed imagers will also see a small nebulous patch just off the lower left edge of the nebula. This is MAC0751+0257, a 17th magnitude anonymous galaxy.

The precise calibrated color and saturation in this LRGB image was maintained with a process I will be posting in an article in a week or two.

Instrument: 12.5" f/5 Home made Newtonian Platform: Astrophysics 1200 QMD CCD Camera: SBIG 10XME NABG with Enhanced Water Cooling Guider: SBIG ST4 Exposure: LRGB = 60:20:20:20 (RGB Binned 2x2) RGB Combine Ratio: 1: 1.05: 1.11 Filters: AstroDon RGB Tricolor Location: Payson, Arizona Elevation: 5150 ft. Sky: Seeing FWHM = 6 arcsec (Maxim DL - 10min subframe), Transparency 8/10 Outside Temperature: 35 F CCD Temperature: -30 C Processing Tools: Maxim DL, Gralaks Sigma, Photoshop, PixInsight, CCDOps Debloomer. HOME GALAXIES EMISSION NEBS REFLECTION NEBS COMETS GLOBULARS OPEN CLUST PLANETARIES LINKS
 

 
 


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