Rob_K
07-02-2016, 01:59 PM
Maybe not so big, definitely bad. ;) Last night was partly cloudy and not good for widefield survey shots so I thought I'd have a go at a spectrum of a Wolf-Rayet star. Gamma Velorum & Theta Muscae were the brightest options but I went with Theta Muscae because it was a bit lower and I didn't have to point the camera up on a dewy night!
Anyway, Theta Muscae is a three-star system, only one of which is the WR star, and with the companions contributing significantly to the luminosity I didn't know what to expect. Pretty noisy but was very pleased to get two big wide spikes of carbon emission sticking out above the continuum! In fact they looked like two big ears, which inspired the 'whimsical' version attached. :P
There is some basic info on Wolf-Rayet stars here, if you're interested:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wolf%E2%80%93Rayet_star
Cheers -
Anyway, Theta Muscae is a three-star system, only one of which is the WR star, and with the companions contributing significantly to the luminosity I didn't know what to expect. Pretty noisy but was very pleased to get two big wide spikes of carbon emission sticking out above the continuum! In fact they looked like two big ears, which inspired the 'whimsical' version attached. :P
There is some basic info on Wolf-Rayet stars here, if you're interested:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wolf%E2%80%93Rayet_star
Cheers -