The Spiral Planetary Nebula, NGC 5189

[SkyViking (Rolf)]

In my desperation to produce some new images despite the rather cloudy conditions in Auckland lately I went through my archives and stumbled across a forgotten data set from March, most of it gathered just two days after full Moon and in rather poor seeing conditions (FWHM >3").

The result was a nice colourful image of the not so often imaged Spiral Planetary Nebula, NGC 5189:

Link to large image
Link to full resolution image (3.5M)

About the image:
The colourful and intricately shaped Spiral Planetary Nebula (NGC 5189) is located up to 3000 light years away in the Southern constellation Musca. It is a very complex nebula with a morphology not well understood by scientists.
Several expanding bubbles of gas appear in its centre, emitting a predominantly blue-green light from ionised Oxygen. Surrounding these bubble structures lies the large sweeping spiral shape, brilliantly shining with a magenta hue from ionised Hydrogen, similar to that of traditional emission nebulae.
The full frame image shows the small nebula nestled amongst countless reddish stars in Musca, a densely populated region of our Milky Way galaxy.

Image details:
Date: 7th and 19th March 2014
Exposure: LRGB: 113:105:105:25 mins, total 5 hours 48 mins @ -25C
Telescope: Homebuilt 12.5" f/4 Homebuilt Serrurier Truss Newtonian
Camera: QSI 683wsg with Lodestar guider
Filters: Astrodon LRGB E-Series Gen 2
Taken from my observatory in Auckland, New Zealand

Hope you enjoy this colourful festive nebula!

Regards,
Rolf

[RickS (Rick)]

That's a pretty little thing, Rolf.

Cheers,
Rick.

[Shiraz (Ray)]

Pretty image Rolf. Hard to think of how that sort of structure might have come about.

[strongmanmike (Michael)]

Excellent despite the less than favourable conditions Rolf with lovely colours as is usual for you, I like it It is a very cool object, actually I chose this object for my first light target with my then new SX gear last year but I did it in narrowband .

Mike

[stevous67 (Steve M)]

Hello Rolf,

Your equipment combination produces a wonderful calibrated flat field, that in itself is a credit to you.

Very nicely processed as usual, great colour balance.

Kind regards,

Steve

[Placidus (Mike and Trish)]

Rolf, that really is superb. Very sharp detail on a tiny, intriguing, beautiful object. The general stellar background works well.

[SkyViking (Rolf)]

Originally Posted by RickS

That's a pretty little thing, Rolf.

Cheers,
Rick.

Thank you Rick, it is a nice colourful PN for sure.

Originally Posted by Shiraz

Pretty image Rolf. Hard to think of how that sort of structure might have come about.

Thanks Ray, yes it has been the subject of a few studies due to its unusual morphology.

Originally Posted by strongmanmike

Excellent despite the less than favourable conditions Rolf with lovely colours as is usual for you, I like it It is a very cool object, actually I chose this object for my first light target with my then new SX gear last year but I did it in narrowband .

Mike

Thanks very much Mike. I remember your NB version now, very nice
I hope to get some higher resolution data some day when the seeing is better, it was unfortunatly very poor on those two nights and I only got around to process it now because I initially thought nothing much would come of it - but still a resonable image after all

Originally Posted by stevous67

Hello Rolf,

Your equipment combination produces a wonderful calibrated flat field, that in itself is a credit to you.

Very nicely processed as usual, great colour balance.

Kind regards,

Steve

Thank you Steve, I do calibrate with flats and also use DBE in PixInsight to remove any residual gradients. It is usually a bit of an art...
There are nearly always some gradients present, so I can assure you that straight out of the camera my field is certainly not this flat

Originally Posted by Placidus

Rolf, that really is superb. Very sharp detail on a tiny, intriguing, beautiful object. The general stellar background works well.

Thanks a lot Mike I 2was hoping for more detail, but am happy with the result given the circumstances. I like the dense star field too, it gives a nice ambience to the nebula.