The Spiral Planetary Nebula, NGC 5189

[SkyViking]

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 (http://www.rolfolsenastrophotography.com/Astrophotography/Nebulae/i-6DmCBdT/X3)
Link to full resolution image (3.5M) (http://www.rolfolsenastrophotography.com/Astrophotography/Nebulae/i-6DmCBdT/O)

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]

That's a pretty little thing, Rolf.

Cheers,
Rick.

[Shiraz]

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

[strongmanmike]

Excellent despite the less than favourable conditions Rolf with lovely colours as is usual for you, I like it :thumbsup: 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 :thumbsup:.

Mike

[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

[Placidus]

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

[SkyViking]

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


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


Thanks very much Mike. I remember your NB version now, very nice :thumbsup:
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 :)


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 :)


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.