NGC2346 The Butterfly Nebula - The Dance of 2 Stars

[Seti Astro]

Finally a clear night when I could finish getting data for this image!

NGC2346 in Foraxx HOO palette.

Not a whole lot of amateur images of this one.  It is quit small and had to push drizzling and plenty of strong dithering to bring out as much detail as I could.  Effective f/ ratio of f/12 at this resolution on my 120ST.

I did take deep long exposures of the broader area and there really isn't much at all surrounding this nebula.  I did an annotated zoomed out version even highlighting various types of stars and galaxies and only 2 galaxies and a handful of variable, red branch, and carbon stars.  Really nothing else!

The other thing I find just absolutely surprising is this was created by a dance of two stars.  They orbit so tightly their period is only 16days and is only split by spectroscopy.  When one went into a red giant phase the other star just plowed through the outer layers of it shredding it apart and flinging it into these two lobes you see.

Link to Astrobin:  https://astrob.in/2f779j/0/

Link to video I made for this image: https://youtu.be/OnoFk9Hez9Q

Comments appreciated!

 

Close in crop:

[ollypenrice]

Bravo, that's a great object and good write-up. Even when you don't have the ideal focal length you can have a darned good look at an object.

Olly

[Seti Astro]

Thanks Olly!  I do have a C8 for a little more reach, but don't want to change OTAs over while still working on nebula.  I was happy with this little object in my refractor for sure.