A Soap Bubble and a Crescent...

[Avdhoeven]

The "Soap Bubble Nebula" is the common name for the planetary nebula PN G75.5+1.7. This nebula was only discovered by amateur astronomer Dave Jurasevich on July 6th, 2008. It was independently confirmed and reported by Keith Quattrocchi and Mel Helm on July 17th, 2008. 

PN G75.5+1.7 is situated in the constellation of Cygnus, very near the Crescent Nebula (NGC 6888). It is embedded in a large diffuse nebula which, in combination with its low surface magnitude, is the reason it was not discovered until recently. 

I decided last year that I wanted to see if I could catch this very faint nebula with my 9.2 cm refractor. I started working on imaging this in 2015, but then I only got 4 images before weather interrupted the imaging sequence. It was only now that I was able to catch more data of this region to see what would come out. Last night I took 16 images of 900s each with a 5nm Astrodon H-alpha filter. 

In the stacked image the Soap Nebula is already clearly visible (see annotated version to locate it), but I want to see if can catch more data in the near future to reduce the noise and strengthen the signal more. Still I'm happy to be able to really image this nebula, which is one of my favorites.

 

[steppenwolf]

The Soap Bubble is a tricky customer but it lies in such a beautiful region of Cygnus only enhanced by the presence of the Crescent Nebula. This is a lovely image here, clearly showing the 'bubble' and so much more as well!

[wimvb]

Mooi!

That certainly is a faint object. Or nay be not so, but well hidden anyway.

The image works well in b/w, but will you add colour at some point?

[simmo39]

Had a go at this myself last night but mine came out no where near as good as yours. V nice indeed.

 

[Avdhoeven]

Thanks! I still want to take a lot more time for this image to reduce the noise...