I have never imaged this cluster with its beautiful little planetary nebula before, at least not directly
There are very few images out there that reveal all three shells of this little beauty so I thought I'd give her a crack - the outer most one is incredibly faint.
Still not quuuite in the mega data category I guess but never the less at 11.3hrs this is officially my longest exposure so far with the AG12
and took 3 nights to gather
The planetary neb NGC 2438 is pretty small, the inner brightest ring is just 1' across! so with some windy conditions at times (thank goodness for the dome) and average seeing the order of
the night, I was happy to be able to reveal some inner details as well as the very faint outer shells
Again, no darks, no flats and no gradient or noise removal..more details under the images here:
Full Frame FOV ~ 38' X 30' showing the whole cluster M46
Medium Crop FOV ~ 16' X 13'
Close Up of PN NGC 2438 FOV ~ 7' X 7'
NB: NGC 2438 is not actually within the cluster but is just a chance alignment...looks pretty cool though
NEW* Another
smaller and much fainter planetary can be found just above or west? of NGC 2438
Apparently this smaller object is in fact a protoplanetary nebula, which also has the names of the Calabash Nebula or the Rotten Egg Nebula
Cheers big ears
Mike