Banana Nebula - NGC3199 (HOO) - May2024

The "Banana" nebula (NGC3199) located in the constellation "Carina".

The "bubble" shape of the nebula could be the bow shock around (the particularly hot and luminous) Wolf–Rayet central star, WR 18.

This object was imaged through narrowband filters on the rare clear sky nights during April and May and the filters were combined as HOO, with the SII data used to slightly emphasize the fine structure and details.

The total integration time through all three narrowband filters (SII, Ha & OIII) was 25 hours and 20 minutes, consisting of 31x600s of Hα, 35x900s of OIII and 34x1200s of SII subs.

Exposed through a C8 SCT at f6.3 with a QHY268M camera cooled to -5°C.

Software used to capture, stack and process this image was APT 4.50, PHD 2.6.13, DSS 5.1.5, Siril 1.2.1 and Photoshop.