Sunrise over M76

[alan4908]

M76, which is also known as the the Little Dumbbell, Cork or Butterfly Nebula is a planetary nebula about 4.5 light years across and approx 4000 light years distant. It was formed about 10,000 years ago when the central dying star lost a huge amount of matter.  The structure of the nebula has two inner lobes and two fainter outer ones.  High Ha emissions are present along with OIII emissions which create a the teal (blue/green) cast.

As for the title, the bright star reminded me of Sunrise on Earth, hence the name. 

(For the more literal among you, the bright star is HD10498 which has apparent magnitude of 6.6, so you'd probably be unable to see this with the naked eye.  It's about 27x the size of our Sun and is approx 900 light years distant). 

The LRGB image below represents over 15 hours integration time and was taken with my Esprit 150.

Alan

 

 

LIGHTS: L:36, R:20, G:16, B:20 x 600s, DARKS:30, FLATS:40, BIAS:100 all at -20C.

 

[Ouroboros]

By the title I was expecting a motorway (M76) photographed at dawn. 🙂

You've got a really lovely photograph there. So good to have the astronomical info too. 

[Craney]

Great shot.     Have tried this one and soon discovered that I need to move to the Gobi Desert to get enough hours in....

The image is LRGB.....but you mention that Oiii adds a colour.....   so is it a LRGB/Oiii  Hybrid mix   ??  

[Rodd]

Very nice--is this with the 150?  I would have guessed it was from a much larger scope--well done

Rodd

[alan4908]

3 hours ago, Ouroboros said:

By the title I was expecting a motorway (M76) photographed at dawn. 🙂

You've got a really lovely photograph there. So good to have the astronomical info too. 

Thanks !

1 hour ago, Craney said:

Great shot.     Have tried this one and soon discovered that I need to move to the Gobi Desert to get enough hours in....

The image is LRGB.....but you mention that Oiii adds a colour.....   so is it a LRGB/Oiii  Hybrid mix   ??  

Hello and thanks for the comment.  The image is LRGB, so I'm just using broadband filters.

The object is quite rich in both Ha and OIII emissions,  which is why you sometimes see narrow band images of this object using Ha and OIII filters.   However, since Ha = Red and OIII = Blue you can also choose to image this with broadband filters, as I have done.  Hopefully this makes sense. 

25 minutes ago, Rodd said:

Very nice--is this with the 150?  I would have guessed it was from a much larger scope--well done

Rodd

Thanks Rod.

Yes, this was taken with my Esprit 150. I'm at an imaging scale of 0.7 arc seconds per pixel , so it's high resolution. In addition, I performed a high strength deconvolution on the lum data which revealed more detail. 

Alan

[Rodd]

6 minutes ago, alan4908 said:

Thanks !

Hello and thanks for the comment.  The image is LRGB, so I'm just using broadband filters.

The object is quite rich in both Ha and OIII emissions,  which is why you sometimes see narrow band images of this object using Ha and OIII filters.   However, since Ha = Red and OIII = Blue you can also choose to image this with broadband filters, as I have done.  Hopefully this makes sense. 

Thanks Rod.

Yes, this was taken with my Esprit 150. I'm at an imaging scale of 0.7 arc seconds per pixel , so it's high resolution. In addition, I performed a high strength deconvolution on the lum data which revealed more detail. 

Alan

Still-it must be a crop no?   the target is so big in the FOV.  With my TOA 130 at 1,000mm and asi 1600 (also .7 arcsec/pix--.78 actually), the target is much smaller in the FOV.  Is the sensor you are using much smaller than 13.4x17.7?

Rodd

[alan4908]

1 minute ago, Rodd said:

Still-it must be a crop no?   the target is so big in the FOV.  With my TOA 130 at 1,000mm and asi 1600 (also .7 arcsec/pix--.78 actually), the target is much smaller in the FOV.  Is the sensor you are using much smaller than 13.4x17.7?

Rodd

Hi Rodd

Yes - the image is definitely cropped ! - I normally crop away until I get the prettiest picture.  

FYI the camera I'm using is the SX Trius 814.

Alan

[Rodd]

6 minutes ago, alan4908 said:

Hi Rodd

Yes - the image is definitely cropped ! - I normally crop away until I get the prettiest picture.  

FYI the camera I'm using is the SX Trius 814.

Alan

Thanks--I sometimes do the same, but I never know how the image will scale on a forum until I post--and cropping adds another variable.  Sometimes I have to look on 3 different computer screens on my private section of Astrobin before posting to this forum--just to see how it will be scaled.  Sometimes with a crop the image gets smaller if you click on it.  Its all very confusing.....don't even throw resampling into the mix!

Rodd