Saturday, December 21, 2024
Sharpless 132, A Furious Cosmic Horse Gets Blinded by a Divine Blue Light
This is one of my favorite targets in Cepheus, Sh2-132 has an interesting structures due to massive energetic stars in it. I haven't found any explanation to the blue, jet like, structure glowing blue light of ionized Oxygen (O-III), the structure is visible also in H-alpha light.
When I shot firs photos out of this distant object about twenty years ago, I gave a longish name to it, "A Furious Cosmic Horse Gets Blinded by a Divine Blue Light" I don't usually name my photos but with some of them I simply must do so.
This is a kind of high resolution photo taken with my new imaging platform, it covers about 0.7 x0.7 degrees of sky. (Full Moon has an apparent diameter 0,5 degrees) Seeing was very good to my location, FWHM about 1.6 arcseconds, that's rare up here.
Sharpless 132
A Furious Cosmic Horse Gets Blinded by a Divine Blue Light
A mapped color image from a light emitted by an ionized elements,
sulfur=red, hydrogen=green and oxygen=blue
sulfur=red, hydrogen=green and oxygen=blue
200% Enlarged Portion of the Full Resolution Photo
Click for a full size, 2000x2000 pixels
The Horse as I see it
INFO
Sharpless 132 (Sh2-132) is powered by two massive stars, each with a mass over 20 times greater than our Sun. Formed from shells of ionized gas that have expanded, the nebula's energetic matter not only glows, but is dense enough to contract gravitationally and form stars. The angular size of the Lion Nebula, officially named Sh2-132, is slightly greater than that of the full moon. The gaseous iconic region resides about 10,000 light years away in a constellation named after the King of Aethopia in Greek mythology.
Sharpless 132 in visual colors
Click for a full size photo, 2000x2000 pixels
Visual color version of Sh2-115 glows mostly in red from a light emitted by an ionized elements,
sulfur=red, hydrogen=red and oxygen=blue, this combination is very close to a natural color palette.
sulfur=red, hydrogen=red and oxygen=blue, this combination is very close to a natural color palette.
Sh2-132 in a large context
Please, click for a large image
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 5nm H-alpha, 3nm S-II and 3nm O-III
Total exposure time 11h
H-alpha, 15 x 1200 s, binned 1x1 = 5 h
O-III,9x 1200 s, binned 2x2 = 3h
S-II, 9 x 1200 s. binned 2x2 = 3h
A single calibrated 20 min exposure of H-alpha, Bin 1x1
Click for a full size image.
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