Hunting for planetary nebula (PN) that I could image with narrowband filters during a bright moon night, I stumbled on this little gem. Scouring Astrobin for examples of images take of this target, I haven't found any examples that gathered SHO data. It was often either imaged in HaLRGB, or HOO. I assumed there was no Sii signal, but decided to attempt a few subs. Surprisingly there was a decent Sii signal in this PN. Enough I would say to add more contrast and color to this image.
This is a striking PN, first discovered in 1946 by Rudolph Minkowski. It was not recognized as a PN until Stewart Sharpless independently discovered it in 1959. It is nearly 3200 light years away from Earth. The star in question that may have been behind this spectacular display is thought to be a very faint star just to the right below the central bright star. It is BARELY visible in my image. Maybe I am even imagining it but I think it is there:
As I noted above, I imaged this in Sii in addition to the Ha and Oiii. Did not see any other examples imaged that way. Here is a crop of the Sii signal that I got:
I was always targeting Sh2-71 when imaging this target. But since I was imaging with a full frame sensor, I managed to capture SH2-72 in the field of view. I have uploaded that field of view as revision B.
Hope this helps whoever wants to image this in the future.
CS!
Comments