NGC6543 The Cat's Eye nebula

[Kaptain Klevtsov]

Wow is this a faint little so and so or what? Using the 200mm f/5 Newt. because the EQ6/Tal200K goto couldn't find it, I nearly failed to identify it with the light bucket. Only the impending arrival of a curry made me leave it snapping away long enough to get these. Curry time is 8PM, so the light sky background doesn't help. During eating said curry, the clouds arrived, so four shots of 45 seconds only, and these were intended to be just to confirm the target. No guiding set up so unguided.

(click to enlarge)

This shows the genereal area around it, FOV is 14 arcminutes across, or thereabouts. After aquiring the target it was not at all clear which bit is the target. The real thing is arrowed, whilst the little edge on fuzzy galaxy in the background (circled) is what I thought we might want.

Stacking four of these and stretching the living daylights out of them gives this.

(click to enlarge)

Note the image has been reversed left to right in the processing to better line up with this.

(click to enlarge)

This is a Deep Sky Survey image of the area which clearly shows the target is the bright object in the frame and lots of delicate detail around the edges. The mini galaxy also shows up well.

I hope to have another bash at this soon, as it looks very interesting. An easy target as far as where its kept, its almost straight up in October.

Would love to see a snap of this come out of Rog's new dome with the C11, that could be awesome.

Kaptain Klevtsov

[dogfish]

Hi KK,

Well done. I'm surprised at the lack of detail, but the brightness is right. Do you think you'd get more detail with more magnification (is that possible?). There are lots of these small planetary nebulae (saturn, helix, blue snowball, etc), but you don't see them imaged very often. Thanks for rising to the challenge.

Martin

[lunator]

KK

good scout out of the target

I look forward to seeing the guided pic

Cheers

Ian

[barkis]

Aye, a good bit of sluething there Kap'n. You must give it another go yourself, preferably without the interference of the local curry house,

unless your chick, (your name, not mine) makes it herself.

As you said, there is big potential in that piece of sky..

Ron.

[Vega]

:salute: Respect KK for even attempting it! Anyone else on SGL with the will power have the courage to bag this shy object?

Vega

[SteveL]

If you can promise me a clear sky, i will

[Kaptain Klevtsov]

Apparently it comes out best with an OIII filter.

http://www.narrowbandimaging.com/ngc6543_cat_rdsc18_6303_ado3_22x10min_page.htm

Richard Crisp is doing some amazing backyard stuff using narrow band imaging, well worth a look round his website if you have several hours to spare.

Kaptain Klevtsov

[SteveL]

22 x 10 min, 2x2 binned, through a 18" OTA... i think that might have something to do with it:)

[Vega]

If you can promise me a clear sky, i will

hmmm Thursday nights forecast not too bad for your area and it's new moon.

and in the red corner..... Go Steve, Go Steve, Go Steve

[Kaptain Klevtsov]

Steve, check out his latest project.

http://www.narrowbandimaging.com/3c461_cassA_mk1sn2_cm10_geg_cs4_s2hao3_page.htm

Now that is going to take some exposure time.

Kaptain Klevtsov

[Vega]

22 hours :shock:. Do we even get clear skies for that long in the UK ?

[SteveL]

In a year, maybe... not this year, obviously

[SteveL]

blimey! its a tiny target, isnt it....

[SteveL]

Lets see if I have this right... its a 20 arcsecond target, yes?

Edit:

Apparent dimensions (V)

Core: 20?

Halo: 5?.8

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cat's_Eye_Nebula

[Kaptain Klevtsov]

That seems about right Steve, going by the snap I got. The image in Starry Night Pro put meoff, as it appears to show only the core.

Kaptain Klevtsov

[CELESCOPE]

No probs KK i will get big bertha on it should throw up an image about half an inch i think , at least i hope so , i did do it with the gps 8 and got a pretty good result , that was back in the no guiding no EQ days , lost all data now though , thats why i want the C11 to get these small planetary nebs.

Rog

[SteelRat]

Nicely hunted down KK 8)

[dogfish]

thats why i want the C11 to get these small planetary nebs.

Excellent news. I'll look forward to a flurry of planetary nebulae images from you both.

Martin (big fan of planetary nebuale)

[Kaptain Klevtsov]

To give an idea of the size of the thing on your chips, this is an image I did from DSS data. The image is 15 arcminutes square.

(click to enlarge)

NOT my data, borrowed it from the STScI page http://stdatu.stsci.edu/cgi-bin/dss_form

Kaptain klevtsov

[SteveL]

what a cracking idea... hadt thought about doing that...

[Kaptain Klevtsov]

Not my idea - Practical Astronomer did an article on nicked data for cloudy nights.

This is a red and a blue plus a 50/50 mix for the green processed up. Its great if you want a map of the stars, just put in your object, select a size and download a picture. Great for centering fuzzies that you can't see on the monitor.

Kaptain Klevtsov

[Kaptain Klevtsov]

So I managed to get another 40 minutes last night basically not getting anything good. According to Starry Night Pro, there are 13th Mag. stars around the thing which I picked up no problem, plus loads of smaller ones which are even dimmer. To me, this means that the halo bit is extremely dim and is going to be a right pain to get. I was using a CLS filter to try to get rid of any light pollution and drop the background brightness as much as possible. 4 minutes binned 2X and still no detail. NGC 6552 in the background on the right, at Mag. 14.6 shows up well also, but the nebulosity bit refuses to show through. There is a hint of it, but it's going to need some long exposures or a good night.

(click to enlarge)

I then tried to use a OIII filter on it, but the clouds arrived before I'd got the focus done right.

Good job its going to be there for a while.

Kaptain Klevtsov

[SteveL]

I`m still waiting for the weather forecasters to stop lying about clear skies, so i can get out and have a go at this.

[dogfish]

Hi KK

It's coming along nicely with some nebulosity emerging, particularly on the left hand side. Can't wait to see the longer exposures. Can anything be done to get the detail in the core or is this just too tiny and bright?

Cheers, Martin

[SteveL]

I think with the current weather we have, getting detail out of the core might be tricky...

Image from Rick's Astro website ( http://www.ricksastro.com/DSOs/NGC6543wide.shtml )