Celestial hemisphere:  Northern  ·  Constellation: Cygnus (Cyg)  ·  Contains:  34 Cyg)  ·  34 P Cyg  ·  Crescent Nebula  ·  HD191703  ·  HD192003  ·  HD192020  ·  HD192041  ·  HD192078  ·  HD192102  ·  HD192123  ·  HD192163  ·  HD192182  ·  HD192303  ·  HD192361  ·  HD192422  ·  HD192443  ·  HD192444  ·  HD192536  ·  HD192537  ·  HD192766  ·  HD192934  ·  HD193032  ·  HD193182  ·  HD193183  ·  HD193324  ·  HD193427  ·  HD193443  ·  HD193469  ·  HD193514  ·  HD193515  ·  And 157 more.
Getting plate-solving status, please wait...
NGC 6888 Crescent Nebula - Awash in a Sea of Pink, Doug Lozen
Powered byPixInsight

NGC 6888 Crescent Nebula - Awash in a Sea of Pink

Getting plate-solving status, please wait...
NGC 6888 Crescent Nebula - Awash in a Sea of Pink, Doug Lozen
Powered byPixInsight

NGC 6888 Crescent Nebula - Awash in a Sea of Pink

Equipment

Loading...

Acquisition details

Loading...

Description

Discovered by William Herschel (who also discovered the planet Uranus), NGC 6888 isn't listed in my 1973 version of Norton's Star Atlas, even though it's within 2-3 degrees of Deneb and Messier 29 in Cygnus.  Also known as C27 (entry 27 in Sir Patrick Moore's Caldwell Catalogue), Herschel described this object as "Faint, Very Large, Very Elongated" as viewed through his 48" f/10 Newtonian Reflector, the so called "Forty-Foot Telescope".

Before the advent of modern astro imaging cameras with narrowband filters and sophisticated processing software, the Crescent Nebula was relatively unknown in the amateur astronomy community.  It's visually very faint, requiring a large telescope with dark skies; a visual OIII filter is helpful.

We now know that the nebula glows as the result of the 7.5 magnitude star HD (Henry Draper) 192163, aka WR (Wolf-Rayet) 136.  This star is 600,000 times brighter than our sun; to put this in perspective, WR 136 would have the same apparent brightness as the sun in our skies if it was placed approximately 20 times further away from us than the planet Pluto.  From such a distance, light would take 4.5 days to reach Earth! 

WR 136 is expected to die as a supernova within a few hundred thousand years, wherein it will briefly outshine the entirety of the Milky Way to an extragalactic observer of our galaxy.  In the meantime, its 3.8 million mph wind is overtaking a shell of gas previously expelled by the star, thereby resulting in the crescent shape seen today. 

Captured with my 4" refractor with 3nm narrowband filters in the late summer/early fall of 2023.

Comments

Sky plot

Sky plot

Histogram

NGC 6888 Crescent Nebula - Awash in a Sea of Pink, Doug Lozen