A bit crabby

[Whistlin Bob]

I made the most of a short clear spell last Wednesday. This is the Crab Nebula- the first object in Messier’s catalogue. I captured it with my ASI 1600mm and 8 inch Newtonian – its first use since last September- with 30 minutes of RGB on the stars and then half an hour each on Ha and Oiii. Not really enough, but there was intermittent cloud throughout the evening and I rejected more of the narrowband subs than I kept.

I’m really fond of this object for several reasons: I love its place in history, with clear records in China in 1054 observing the actual supernova, it’s a good observing challenge and really jumps out with an Oiii filter, and it’s one of only 2 natural phenomena (the other being a neutron star collision) that we know of that produces Gold. I always get a bit whimsical and hold my wedding ring when observing M1, as a direct physical link to a similar ancient astronomical event.

Doesn’t look much like a crab to me though!

[simmo39]

V nice, always like to see the crab!

[peter shah]

A superb rendition, lovely detain and FOV