Thor's Helmet - NGC 2359
This helmet-shaped cosmic cloud with wing-like appendages is popularly called Thor's Helmet. Heroically sized even for a Norse god, Thor's Helmet is about 30 light-years across.
A popular target and one I needed to tick this one off my bucket list - have attempted it several times but until now, I didn't really have the equipment to do it justice!
In fact, the helmet is more like an interstellar bubble, blown as a fast wind from the bright, massive star near the bubble's center sweeps through a surrounding molecular cloud. Known as a Wolf-Rayet star, the central star is an extremely hot giant thought to be in a brief, pre-supernova stage of evolution. Cataloged as NGC 2359, the nebula is located about 15,000 light-years away in the constellation Canis Major.
This image, made using broadband (RGB stars) and narrowband Ha & O3) filters, captures details of the nebula's filamentary structures.
It shows off a blueish color from strong emission due to oxygen atoms in the glowing gas.
(Text borrowed from APOD)
8Hrs Ha 3nm x 600 secs (mixed dark site & home)
3.5Hrs O3 3nm x 600 secs (mixed dark site & home)
20mins RG&B 120 secs (dark site)
Taken from Kilmore, Victoria with additional NB Data from suburban Melbourne.
Final Version Here
10" CF F4 scope, TAk NJP mount, QSI 683wsg8 camera.
C&C Welcome
Total of 12.5 hrs total integration = 36 hrs on my previous scopes!