Geoff45
22-03-2018, 09:28 PM
Image is here: https://www.astrobin.com/338128/?nc=user
This is the best seeing I have had at Wiruna for quite a while but it was still pretty ordinary (about 2.7"). The Eight Burst Nebula is an interesting and pretty object, but is rather small---about 1.5'. Well worth going for if the seeing justifies it.
Details:
Telescope: 12.5" Plane Wave CDK
Camera: FLI Proline 16803 with a 49' x 49' FOV
Exposure: 80 min each of Ha, SII and OIII
The colour mapping is chosen to mimic RGB:
Ha+25% Sii -->Red
OIII-->Green
OIII +25% Ha -->Blue
FOV: 6' x 6', so there was some pretty severe cropping here.
Processing: PixInsight
Blurb: NGC 3132 is also known as the Southern Ring Nebula or, more commonly, as the Eight-Burst Nebula because of its figure-8 appearance through small telescopes. It is a very bright, asymmetric planetary nebula of approximately 0.4 light years across and is about 2,000 light-years away in the southern constellation Vela. It is receding from us at 49 kilometers per second.
This expanding cloud of gas is one of the nearest known planetary nebulae. The gases expand away from the central star at a speed of about 14.4 kilometers per second. Interestingly, neither the unusual shape of the surrounding cooler shell nor the structure and placements of the cool filamentary dust lanes running across NGC 3132 are well understood.
This is the best seeing I have had at Wiruna for quite a while but it was still pretty ordinary (about 2.7"). The Eight Burst Nebula is an interesting and pretty object, but is rather small---about 1.5'. Well worth going for if the seeing justifies it.
Details:
Telescope: 12.5" Plane Wave CDK
Camera: FLI Proline 16803 with a 49' x 49' FOV
Exposure: 80 min each of Ha, SII and OIII
The colour mapping is chosen to mimic RGB:
Ha+25% Sii -->Red
OIII-->Green
OIII +25% Ha -->Blue
FOV: 6' x 6', so there was some pretty severe cropping here.
Processing: PixInsight
Blurb: NGC 3132 is also known as the Southern Ring Nebula or, more commonly, as the Eight-Burst Nebula because of its figure-8 appearance through small telescopes. It is a very bright, asymmetric planetary nebula of approximately 0.4 light years across and is about 2,000 light-years away in the southern constellation Vela. It is receding from us at 49 kilometers per second.
This expanding cloud of gas is one of the nearest known planetary nebulae. The gases expand away from the central star at a speed of about 14.4 kilometers per second. Interestingly, neither the unusual shape of the surrounding cooler shell nor the structure and placements of the cool filamentary dust lanes running across NGC 3132 are well understood.