Abell 24 - a cosmic rose

[gorann]

This beautiful flower-like PN in Canis Minor is 2300 LY away from us, and spans 6 arc-minutes, corresponding to a 4 LY diameter.
The image reveals some central Oiii in the nebula, but it is weak compared to the dominant Ha emission so I had to stretch the Oiii signal a bit more than Ha to make it appear. The progenitor star is most likely the small blue star in the center of the nebula. The nebula was hardly visible in the RGB data, which mainly contributed the star color.

This is my third image taken with the Margareta Westlund Telescope in southern Spain, owned by the Swedish Amateur Astronomical Society and available remotely to its members. It is a Planewave 17" CDK with an ASI6200MM. 2.5 hours of Ha and Oiii and 1 hour of RGB for star colour. Processed in PI and PS with the XTerminator tools of course.

Cheers, Göran

Edited March 13 by gorann

[Roy Foreman]

Very pretty !

[gorann]

59 minutes ago, Roy Foreman said:

Very pretty !

Thanks a lot Roy!

Cheers Göran 

[WolfieGlos]

6 hours ago, gorann said:

Planewave 17" CDK with an ASI6200MM

Wow, that's a serious bit of kit. Lucky you for having access to something like that Goran! Is the image cropped at all?

[gorann]

2 minutes ago, WolfieGlos said:

Wow, that's a serious bit of kit. Lucky you for having access to something like that Goran! Is the image cropped at all?

Thanks Chris! Yes, it has some advantages being a Swede😅 But it should be nothing stopping UK clubs from doing the same.

No cropping. That is how it came out at 3 m focal length and 18x24 mm chip.

Edited March 13 by gorann

[WolfieGlos]

21 minutes ago, gorann said:

No cropping. That is how it came out at 3 m focal length and 18x24 mm chip.

Wow, even with a 2x barlow I get half of that FL with my rig 🤣 

Very impressive.