Kronberger 61 - The Soccer Ball Nebula

[Petergoodhew]

Kronberger 61 (Kn 61). also known as the Soccer Ball nebula, is a recently-discovered planetary nebula in the constellation of Cygnus. It was discovered in January 2011 by Mattias Kronberger, who is a member of the amateur group Deep Sky Hunters. It is very small (diameter of 104 arcsecs).
It is barely visible on the second Palomar Optical Sky Survey (POSS-II) blue plate scan, suggesting a surface brightness well below magnitude 25 per square arcsecond - and at an estimated distance of 13,000 light years (1).
It is a highly filamentary bubble with a high expansion velocity of 67.6 km/second. A crude kinematic age for the bubble yields 16,000 years (2).

Astrodon Blue: 10x300"
Astrodon Green: 10x300"
Astrodon Lum: 19x600"
Astrodon Red: 10x300"
Astrodon OIII: 34x1800s bin 2x2

Total Integration: 23 hours

Captured on my dual rig in Spain.
Scopes: APM TMB LZOS 152 (6" aperture 1200mm focal length)
Cameras: QSI6120wsg8
Mount: 10Micron GM2000 HPS

(1) <a href="http://www.gemini.edu/node/11656" rel="noreferrer nofollow">www.gemini.edu/node/11656</a>
(2) <a href="https://arxiv.org/abs/1406.4408" rel="noreferrer nofollow">arxiv.org/abs/1406.4408</a>

Edited November 7, 2019 by Petergoodhew

[almcl]

Wow, what a lovely image, Peter!

Thanks for posting.

Out of curiosity, where/how did you first find out about it?  

[Petergoodhew]

31 minutes ago, almcl said:

Out of curiosity, where/how did you first find out about it?  

Thanks.  There's a chap called Sakib Rasool (starsurfin.co.uk) who sends me lots of requests for me to image the more obscure (i.e. challenging!) planetary nebulae.

Peter

[almcl]

Thanks for that, looks an interesting web site!