NGC 3199 is a Wolf-Rayet nebula: a most amazing, extraordinary beast in which light pressure alone from a huge star expels the outer atmosphere. This atmosphere will necessarily be mostly hydrogen, with some oxygen and a touch of yet more heavily processed stuff such as sulphur and nitrogen dredged up from the depths.
This particular beastie is moving toward the right relative to the pre-existing interstellar medium, and consequently there is something of a bow shock happening on the right hand side of the image. The [SII], though scanty, does seem to form discrete thready structures.
Last night we added another 5.5 hrs of [SII] taken with an FLI PL16803 to the 13 hrs of [SII], 7 hrs of H-alpha, and 9 hrs of [OIII] previously taken with an Aspen CG16M in 2016. Total exposure 29 hrs.
A revised version of the full resolution image is here
20 inch PlaneWave. Field approximately 37 min arc, North up. Astrodon 3nM filters.
As usual, apart from the cameras, all robotics and software including acquisition and processing software designed/built/written by us. Nothing from the fish market or from Doyles.
Processing:
- Wavelet noise filter
- Deconvolve
- Separate into stars and starless, map stars to white.
- Colour balance the nebulosity to be on average colour neutral.
- Wavelet sharpen the nebulosity (increase contrast by just 60%)
- Recombine.
In exciting news, our third Honda EU300iS generator died this morning, minutes after taking the last sub. That averages one every 4 years. That's it. No more generators. Our lithium batteries and solar are ominously still at least a couple weeks away, a bit like controlled nuclear fusion.
Best,
Mike and Trish