Banana Nebula - NGC3199 (SHO) - May 2024

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 SHO, known as the Hubble Palette.

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