NGC 2736, Herschel's Ray, aka the Pencil Nebula

[glend]

NGC 2736, Herchel's Ray, aka the Pencil Nebula lies in Vela and is a part of the Vela Supernova Remnant. This image was taken with a Bresser 152mm f5 Petzval corrected Achromat by an ASI1600MM-C camera running at -25C. Subs consist of 24 x 300s Ha (2hrs) as Green layer, and 15 x 300s Oiii( 1hr 15min) as Red layer. This target is rich in Oiii compared to the Ha component. Processed in DSS and Photoshop CC 2017. There is a slight crop to remove the corners where obvious field curvature appears - I do not have a suitable flattener for this scope yet. Being fairly faint more data will be required to smooth this image out. I was pretty much scraping signal off the noise floor with this version. Some grain can be detected, especially in the full screen version, around the curtain at the bottom. I will return to this target to get more data when the conditions permit. For now this is the first version, and I will update it soon.

Astrobin detail page here:

http://www.astrobin.com/275791/

Full Screen image here:

http://www.astrobin.com/full/275791/0/

Thumbnail attached below.

[glenc]

Nice image Glen, I have seen the bright part visually but didn't know about all that faint stuff.

[strongmanmike]

Some really lovely subtle tendrils visible in there Glen :thumbsup:

Mike

[Placidus]

The faint wispy bits are especially well done. They're not easy.

[glend]

I have collected some more data on the Pencil Nebula and reprocessed to produce a new version. I have added more Ha (now 3hrs) and Oiii (also now 3hrs), and included over an hour of Sii as well to assist balancing. Total integration time is now 7hrs and 15min. Still struggling to bring out those whispy filaments below the nebula but they are a bit better than the original version I think. That will have to do for now. If I get a night of really good seeing i may attempt to run more Oiii to boost the filament structure, and might get the 10" newt onto it at some point (remember this was taken through a 152mm f5 corrected Achro).

New Astrobin version page:

http://www.astrobin.com/275791/B/

Full Screen: http://www.astrobin.com/full/275791/B/

[topheart]

Hi Glen,
That's a lot of not so often seen detail you got there. very interesting.
Cheers,
Tim

[Stonius]

Wow. Lovely capture. I love the endless possibilities that the Vela SN Remenant affords. I love the use of colour too! Nice work! :-)