I wanted to capture this nebula since my astro journey began...
There was minimal processing of this image. I did some sharpening and noise reduction, but no color correction or star sharpening...Thoughts?
From Wikipedia...The
Crab Nebula (catalogue designations
M1,
NGC 1952,
Taurus A) is a
supernova remnant and
pulsar wind nebula in the
constellation of
Taurus.
The common name comes from a drawing that somewhat resembled a crab with arms produced by
William Parsons, 3rd Earl of Rosse, in 1842 or 1843 using a 36-inch (91 cm)
telescope.
[6] The
nebula was discovered by English astronomer
John Bevis in 1731. It corresponds with
a bright supernova observed in 1054 C.E. by Native American, Japanese, and Arabic stargazers
[7]; this supernova was also recorded by
Chinese astronomers as a
guest star. The nebula was the first astronomical object identified that corresponds with a historically-observed supernova explosion.
[8]At an
apparent magnitude of 8.4, comparable to that of
Saturn's moon Titan, it is not visible to the naked eye but can be made out using
binoculars under favourable conditions. The nebula lies in the
Perseus Arm of the
Milky Way galaxy, at a distance of about 2.0
kiloparsecs (6,500
ly) from Earth. It has a diameter of 3.4 parsecs (11 ly), corresponding to an apparent diameter of some 7
arcminutes, and is expanding at a rate of about 1,500 kilometres per second (930 mi/s), or 0.5% of the
speed of light.
The
Crab Pulsar, a
neutron star 28–30 kilometres (17–19 mi) across with a spin rate of 30.2 times per second, lies at the center of the Crab Nebula. The star emits pulses of
radiation from
gamma rays to
radio waves. At
X-ray and gamma ray
energies above 30
keV, the Crab Nebula is generally the brightest persistent gamma-ray source in the sky, with measured flux extending to above 10
TeV. The nebula's radiation allows detailed study of celestial bodies that
occult it. In the 1950s and 1960s, the Sun's
corona was mapped from observations of the Crab Nebula's radio waves passing through it, and in 2003, the thickness of the atmosphere of Saturn's moon Titan was measured as it blocked out X-rays from the nebula.Supernova remnant
Hubble Space Telescope mosaic image assembled from 24 individual Wide Field and Planetary Camera 2 exposures taken in October 1999, January 2000, and December 2000
Observation data: J2000.0 epoch
Right ascension 05h 34m 31.94s[1]
Declination +22° 00′ 52.2″[1]
Distance 6500±1600 ly (2000±500[2] pc)
Apparent magnitude (V) 8.4[3]
Apparent dimensions (V) 420″ × 290″[4][a]
Constellation Taurus
Physical characteristics
Radius ~5.5 ly (~1.7[5] pc)
Absolute magnitude (V) −3.1±0.5
Notable features Optical pulsar
Designations Messier 1, NGC 1952, Taurus A, Sh2-244[1]
Comments