Planetary Nebula NGC4361

[furgle (Adam)]

NGC4361 is a planetary nebula with spiral arms similar to a galaxy. The star at the center of the nebula is shedding its outer layers while contracting to form a white dwarf.


Higher resolution here



Image Integration:

• 34x 120s Luminance
• 35x 240s Luminance
• 36x 240s Red
• 41x 240s Green
• 40x 240s Blue

Total exposure 11 hours 56 minutes.
Hardware:

• Celestron C11 EdgeHD
• SkyWatcher EQ8 Pro Mount
• QSI 683-ws8 Camera @ -15°C
• Astronomik Luminance, Deep Sky RGB filters
• Starlight Xpress Lodestar X2 Autoguider
• Starlight Xpress Active Optics
• Innovations Foresight On Axis Guider

Location:

• Imaged over four nights, high humidity. Orange zone in Brisbane, Australia. (Bortle 7)

Software:

• Planning & camera alignment with The SkyX Pro
• Captured with AstroArt 6
• Guiding with PHD2 + PHD_Dither
• CCDInspector: Image analysis & rejection
• CCDStack 2+: Calibrate, align, stack.
• PixInsight: HDR combination, dynamic background extraction, deconvolution, noise reduction, histogram, curves, color calibration, local histogram equalization.

[Placidus (Mike and Trish)]

Superb! Lovely edge-on spiral galaxy in there too.

Looks rather like a jellyfish as seen from above.

[billdan (Bill)]

That came out pretty good Adam, you must be pleased with the C11 edge for DSO's. The stars do not look bloated as you see with a lot of basic SCT scopes.

There does seem to be a high number of blue stars in that frame, maybe its in a star nursery.

Cheers
Bill

[Dennis]

Wow - that's a real beauty, nice detail.

Cheers

Dennis

[furgle (Adam)]

Originally Posted by billdan

That came out pretty good Adam, you must be pleased with the C11 edge for DSO's. The stars do not look bloated as you see with a lot of basic SCT scopes.

There does seem to be a high number of blue stars in that frame, maybe its in a star nursery.

Cheers
Bill

As long as the sensor distance is exact, it's fantastic. Unfortunately I've spent a mint at Precise Parts to get everything machined to fit right so I can use AO and on axis guiding.

I was worried about the blueness of the image as a whole. Photometric color calibration doesn't change it much though, just adds more green.