NGC 2736 - The Pencil Nebula - Adam Lundie - Eatons Hill Observatory

NGC 2736 - The Pencil Nebula

02-Feb-2017
NGC 2736 - The Pencil Nebula thumbnail
NGC 2736 - The Pencil Nebula
NGC 2736, known as the Pencil Nebula is a part of the supernova remnants from the Vela pulsar, 815 light years away.

This image is a narrowband presentation of hydrogen, and oxygen emission lines, mapped to red and blue respectively, with the green channel synthesized as Ha x OIII. Stars colours were captured with shorter exposures using RGB filters.

Image:

  • 31x 900s 6nm H-alpha + 10 flat + 50x dark + 120x bias
  • 30x 900s 6nm OIII + 15 flat + 50x dark + 120x bias
  • 18x 40s + 15x 20s Red + 10 flat + 50x dark + 120x bias
  • 18x 40s + 16x 20s Green + 10 flat + 50x dark + 120x bias
  • 19x 40s + 19x 20s Blue + 10 flat + 50x dark + 120x bias

Total exposure 16 hours 8 minutes.

Hardware:

  • Skywatcher Black Diamond ED120
  • SkyWatcher EQ8 Pro Mount
  • QSI 683-ws Camera @ -15°C
  • Astronomik 6nm Ha, 12nm SII, 12nm OIII, typ 2c RGB filters
  • Starlight Xpress Lodestar X2 Autoguider
  • Innovations Foresight On Axis Guider
  • Starlight Instruments Focus Boss II

Location:

  • Orange zone in Brisbane, Australia. (Bortle 7)
  • Imaged over 6 nights, high temperatures & humidity, new moon.

Software:

  • Planning & camera alignment with Aladin 9
  • Captured with AstroArt 6
  • Guiding with PHD2 + PHD_Dither
  • FocusLock live focusing
  • CCDInspector: Image analysis & rejection
  • CCDStack 2+: Calibrate, align, stack, combine RGB.
  • Photoshop CC: Reduce noise, high pass filter, gradient removal, levels, curves, color map, saturation.

Home