Skull Nebula (Planetary Nebula NGC 246)

[CoolhandJo]

I Noticed that this Nebulas was in perfect postion for imaging the other night. Due to Full Moon I used Narrow Band Filters only to capture this image.

This image is Ha 40min, Oiii 40min, & Sii 40min with 8inch Newt and Atik 314L+

The Nebula is faint at Mag 11.8, and is 4.1 Arc Min

The Nebula surrounds a dying star some 1,600 light-years away in the constellation Cetus.

The star you can see at the centre of the image seems egg shaped, but its actually a binary (two stars). This binary is becoming a dense, hot white dwarf (dying).

This is only the second Planetary Nebula I have imaged and I find them fascinating, but difficult.

Comments Welcomed.

[strongmanmike]

That's quite beautiful Paul, nice use of a moonlit night :thumbsup:

Mike

[bert]

Hi Joe,

I have not seen this target before, I love the structure you captured from a short total exposure time. Well Done.

How are you finding the atik compared to your previous cameras?

Brett

[gregbradley]

Very nice Paul. I like it. Very different.

Greg.

[alexch]

Excellent image, Paul!
Thanks for sharing, NGC 246 goes on the observing list for true dark sky observing.

Alex

[Lester]

Very nice image Paul, this is the brightest image of NGC 246 that I have seen. Thanks for the view. All the best.

[CoolhandJo]

Thanks Mike! I wasn't going to let a rare event like a clear night go past!



Thanks Brett . The Atik is good so far. I havn't done full calibration yet but so far the onboard cooling has made it easier to capture than my past non cooled cameras. It has pretty low noise for what it is. I'll stick to the medium sized format chip for a while...;)


Thank Greg. I picked this target up using Sky Safari on the iphone! It just lept out and said "image me" (not really but it did say Skull Nebula and not NGC 246 so it stood out)


Thanks Alex - I wonder what it looks like as an observational target? I read that the binary stands out an overwhlems the nebula itself!


Cheers Lester, yes, I believe that the best way to image this target is via NB - Ha, Oiii, and Sii. The Oiii gives it most of the vibrancy and there is hardly any Sii at all - but you need it to balance the colours.

[jase]

Kudos Paul! :thumbsup: Pleased to see something not often imaged. A tough target with its angular size. Very well done. Keep them coming.

Cheers

[CoolhandJo]

Thanks Jase - Unusual object for sure!

[multiweb]

Nice one Paul. Beautiful shot. :thumbsup:

[Ric]

Great capture Paul, I'm a fan of the planetary nebula but I haven't seen this one before.

Thanks for sharing this one.

[Hagar]

Lovely little PN Paul. These can be quite tricky, considering their size and the crop usually required to make it visible this has come up very nice.

Well done.

[CoolhandJo]

Tks Marc, Ric , Doug. I should of calbriated the image with at least some bias to remove the noise. Would of brought more detial out - oh well - will ahve another go at it some day.