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This is one of
            the most challenging nebulas in the sky to photograph. So brilliant
            and diminutive is the core, normally long focal lengths and short
            exposure times are needed to preserve the inner details. Here
            I did the opposite - a large aperture fast Newtonian and longer
            exposure to bring out the very tenuous outer halo of structured
            nebulosity formed from an earlier outburst of the core. The main
            disk of the planetary nebula, know as the "Cat Eye Nebula"
            is a tiny 20 arc seconds in size, and blazing at 8th magnitude.

            
The outer halo
            consists of hydrogen, nitrogen and oxygen and reveals a wealth
            of colors signifying the chemical abundances of this tenuous
            envelope.

            
And now the plot
            here thickens. The patch of nebulosity just to the right of the
            core has its own IC designation, listed as a 16th magnitude planetary
            nebula an arc minute in size! There is also a very nice 14.6th
            magnitude barred spiral off to the left here. Inclined only 3
            degrees, it spans an arc minute across.

Instrument:  12.5" f/5 Home made Newtonian
Mount:  Astrophysics 1200 QMD
CCD Camera:  SBIG 10XME NABG with Enhanced Water Cooling
Guider: Meade DSS Pro  w/Lumicon Newt Easy Guider
Exposure:  LRGB = 120:40:40:40 
AstroDon RGB Combine Ratio:  1: 1.05: 1.2
Location:  Payson, Arizona, Elevation:  5150 ft.
Sky:  Seeing FWHM = 6 arcsec (Maxim DL - 10min subframe), Transparency 9/10  Sky = 21.3 mag/arcsec
Outside Temperature:  55 F
CCD Temperature:  -30 C
Image Processing Tools: 
Maxim DL:  Calibration, deblooming (Starizona Debloomer), aligning, stacking
PixInsight:  Curves, Deconvolution, noise reduction
Photoshop CS2:  Curves, Color Correction, Gradient removal (Grad Xterminator), Cleanup

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