NGC 6543 Cat's Eye Nebula (Lucky Imaging + Long Exposure) (Johnny Qiu)

Celestial hemisphere: Northern · Constellation: Draco (Dra) · Contains: Cat's Eye Nebula · HD164963 · IC 4677 · NGC 6543 · NGC 6552 · PGC 2688666 · PGC 2689421

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NGC 6543 Cat's Eye Nebula (Lucky Imaging + Long Exposure)

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NGC 6543 Cat's Eye Nebula (Lucky Imaging + Long Exposure)

The Cat's Eye Nebula, also known as NGC 6543, is a planetary nebula located in the constellation Draco, approximately 3,300 light-years away from Earth. This nebula earns its name due to its complex internal structure of blue-green hues, surrounded by a bright halo, resembling a cat's eye.

The inner layer of the nebula possesses a high surface brightness and subtends an average of 16.1 arcseconds, with its expansive nebular halo material spanning roughly 386 arcseconds in diameter. The nebular halo material originated from the star as it evolved into a red giant stage. At the heart of the nebula lies an O-type (blue) star, with a temperature of approximately 80,000 K and luminosity about 10,000 times that of the Sun.

My work was produced using a combination of long exposure and lucky imaging. Lucky imaging was carried out with an L filter, which contributed to the brilliant inner regions of the Cat's Eye Nebula. Lucky imaging frames were captured at 1 second per frame, amounting to a total of 4,706 frames, of which 1,712 frames were automatically selected based on star size and shape. For the long exposure portion, LRGB filters were used, with each frame exposed for 5 minutes. Later, when it was found that the inner part of the nebula was too bright and saturated, an additional batch of 10-second RGB frames was added to create an HDR composite.

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The “AstroBin Image of the Day and Top Picks”, or IOTD/TP, is a long-running system to promote beautiful, interesting, peculiar, or otherwise amazing astrophotographs, with a focus on technical excellence. Learn more.

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Status	Advanced success
Started	...
Astrometry.net job	7885332
PixInsight job	HHWP9AJG1JJY0HDR82A9UHJDVUBLR1EG
PixInsight queue size	n/a
PixInsight stage	TASK_LOG

RA (center)	17h58m55s.889
RA (top/left)	17h57m02s.325
RA (top/right)	18h00m48s.710
RA (bottom/right)	18h00m50s.461
RA (bottom/left)	17h57m02s.471

Dec (center)	+66°38′00″.51
Dec (top/left)	+66°30′33″.34
Dec (top/right)	+66°30′22″.33
Dec (bottom/right)	+66°45′21″.99
Dec (bottom/left)	+66°45′33″.75

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NGC 6543 Cat's Eye Nebula (Lucky Imaging + Long Exposure)

NGC 6543 Cat's Eye Nebula (Lucky Imaging + Long Exposure)

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NGC 6543 Cat's Eye Nebula (Lucky Imaging + Long Exposure)

NGC 6543 Cat's Eye Nebula (Lucky Imaging + Long Exposure)

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