Sunday, October 20, 2024
A start of the new imaging project, MWP1, the Methuselah Nebula
MWP1 ( Motch-Werner-Pakull 1, PN G080.3-10.4, PK 080-10.1) is a very old, dim and diffused planetary nebula in constellation Cygnus, the Swan. It's one of the largest planetary nebula known, it spans about 15 light years of space. The apparent size in the sky is 15.52 x 13,13 arcminutes. (Full moon has a diameter of 30 arcminutes) The estimated age of the nebula is 150.000 years.
MWP1 is a very usually shaped, unusually large, and unusually old, planetary nebulae. The progenitor star is also one of the hottest stars known, so hot it is producing large amounts of X-rays. There are not very many photos out of this difficult target.
This is a start of the imaging project with my new imaging system. So far I have shot 15 hours of light from an ionized oxygen, O-III. I'll shoot two other emission lines, H-alpha and S-II, when ever the weather allows it. The triple ionized oxygen emits blueish light, in this image the O-III emission is colorized to blue. I can produce a real three band color image after I have collected enough light for ionized hydrogen and sulfur.
MWP1, the Methuselah Nebula
Click for a large image
MWP1 planetary nebula in light of an ionized oxygen only.Technical details
Processing workflow
Image acquisition, MaximDL v5.07.
Stacked and calibrated in CCDStack2.
Deconvolution with a CCDStack2 Positive Constraint, 27 iterations, added at 50% weight
Color combine in PS CS3
Levels and curves in PS CS3.
Imaging optics, Celestron EDGE 14" with 0.7 Focal reducer
Mount, MesuMount Mark II
Cameras, Imaging camera Apogee Alta U9000M and Apogee seven slot filter wheel
Guider camera, Lodestar x 2 and SXV-AO Active Optics @ 5hz
filters, Astrodon 3nm O-III
Total exposure time
O-III, 45x 1200 s, binned 1x1 = 15h
A single full scale 20 min O-III exposure
Click for a full scale image.
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