Astro-Physics 12" Mak-Cass at f/8

Astro-Physics 1600 GTO with absolute encoders

FLI Proline 16803

Tru-Balance 5nm Ha, 3nm OIII, RGB filter set - Gen 2

April 2015

Las Campanas Observatory, Chile

Ha/OIII 22 ea x 1800 sec 1x1 bin, RGB 20 ea x 1200 sec 1x1 bin

ACP, Maxim DL/CCD, CCDStack, Photoshop CS5

Field of view: 51' x 51' centered on RA 08h59m32s
DEC-46°04'54" (2000). North angle 269.5°; east 90° CCW from north

The Pencil Nebula in Vela is a remnant of a supernova explosion that occurred about 11.000 years ago.  It lies about 800 light years from Earth and spans a distance of about 5 light-years.  The shock wave that created the nebula is traveling through space at about 500,000 km/hour, slamming into the interstellar medium and creating the bluish regions, which glow in the light of ionized oxygen, while the surrounding red regions are a cooler ionized hydrogen source.

This image is a collaborative effort between Howard Hedlund of Astro-Physics, Inc. and Dave Jurasevich, with a total exposure time of 42 hours. Processing followed the Modified Bi-Color technique pioneered by Steve Cannistra with H-alpha as the red channel, OIII as the blue channel and a combination of H-alpha/OIII as a synthetic green channel. Star color was added with data from a RGB set.

This image was featured as NASA’s Astronomy Picture of the Day on 15 July 2016.