Globular Cluster Palomar 6 & Planetary Nebula JaFu 1

[Dennis]

Hello,

Over a couple of night’s I managed to record the Globular Cluster Palomar 6 in Ophiuchus, Magnitude 11.60, Size 1.2' which was discovered by George Abell in 1952.

The Palomar globular clusters (http://www.astronomy-mall.com/Adventures.In.Deep.Space/palglob.htm)were discovered in the 1950s on the survey plates of the first Palomar Observatory Sky Survey (POSS). Upon researching these objects, I discovered that a Planetary Nebula JaFu 1 (http://www.blackskies.org/JaFu_challenge.htm), was lurking nearby. Looking at my image, I think that I have a reasonable candidate for this object, although it is so faint and indistinct in my image that I cannot be certain. It is the tiny, coloured blob in the middle of the smaller circle.

Like Palomar 6, the Planetary Nebula JaFu 1 is located in the constellation of Ophiuchus and was discovered in 1997. The information on PN JaFu 1 seems scant.

You never know what you will find in your images!:)

The attached files show the full field, resized down from 1600x1200 to 1024x768 whilst the 600x800 images are full resolution crops from the frame.

Cheers

Dennis

[Lester]

Stroooth Dennis, what a challenge. Is that a galaxy to the right of the planetary?

Good stuff, keep at it.

[Paul Haese]

Nice Dennis, Steve Crouch was over on the weekend and he wants me to go for Palomar 8 which is also in the region. It too is a faint globular.

Nicely done, star colours are very nice.

[Stevec35]

Nicely done Dennis. In fact the best shot of Pal 6 I can remember seeing. I've been wanting to do Pal 6 for a while but never seem to get round to it.

Not to belittle your achievement but, to anyone else thinking of attempting them, the Palomar clusters aren't all that hard to image. Palomar 8 and 9 are the easiest. In fact Pal 9 has a NGC designation, NGC 6717.

Cheers

Steve

[Ric]

Wonderful work Dennis.

They are two objects that I can honestly say I have not seen before.

[John Hothersall]

That is a faint Palomar but a good catch especially with planetary, little imaged palomars and terzans seem to be littered around Sag area.

John.

[jase]

Simply awesome work Dennis. Am enjoying the 'take it to the exteme' style imaging you've presented of late. Looking forward more!

[SkyViking]

Excellent work Dennis! Funny how I was actually imaging this one also when I did GJJC1 in M22 - however I just couldn't find JaFu1 in the resulting image at all. I have searched intensively at the correct position but it's just not in my image unfortunately. I'm certain you've got it though, there is clearly a blue speck there so that's great :D Congratulations.
And Pal 6 looks awesome too, a very nice image.

[Dennis]

Thanks Lester – I don’t think that the extended object is a galaxy but I will investigate further – a good pick up!


Thanks for your comments Paul; it is rewarding to be the recipient of such positive feedback.


Thanks Steve – I appreciate your comments.


Thanks Ric – these are evil targets, don’t go there; I blame Rolf for my corruption!


Thanks John – the Mewlon lends itself well to these types of objects, although I wish that I had more than 180mm of aperture and something faster than F9.6 so I could more often retire to my bed the same day that I woke up!


Thank you Jase, for your words of encouragement and thank you again, for it was your re-process of my M16 a few years ago that kick started my journey into the mysterious art of LRGB imaging!



Thanks Rolf – I’m not sure that I would be posting these images without the heavy artillery of an SBIG CCD camera, allowing me to take exposures of 15 mins rather than 5 secs!:)

Cheers

Dennis

[Ross G]

Extreme photography Dennis.

Looks amazing.

Thanks.

Ross.

[Dennis]

The LRGB images I presented earlier in this post showed what I considered a reasonable candidate for the Planetary Nebula JaFu 1, located in the constellation of Ophiuchus and only discovered in 1997

I converted a cropped copy of my LRGB image into a B&W rendition via CS5 and then inverted the result. After using “Curves” I noticed a faint concentration slightly higher in the frame than the more diffuse region that I originally thought might be JaFu 1.

I downloaded some USNO B star data and generated an overlay in CS5 but this proved inconclusive.

I then took the finder chart from http://www.blackskies.org/JaFu_challenge.htm and overlaid it on my image and there is good correlation between the plotted position in the finder chart and the faint concentration in my inverted image, making this a better candidate. I have also included an animation to help locate what I think might be JaFu 1.

Even with 15 min subs, this is proving to be one tough object to confirm with a high degree of confidence, especially given that my original target was Palomar 6!

Cheers

Dennis

PS - @Lester – I could not find a galaxy at the location you mentioned after performing various searches.:shrug:

[alan meehan]

Brilliant work Dennis i think you are right that looks like JaFu 1 to me
AL

[desler]

That really is very impressive Dennis. Great result.

Darren

[multiweb]

Missed that one!! :P Awesome work as usual Dennis. Out of the beaten path and always interesting reads. You and Rolf always bring out some new objects in the mix. Very cool. :thumbsup::thumbsup::thumbsup: