NGC 7662, also known as the Blue Snowball Nebula or Snowball Nebula, is a planetary nebula located in the constellation Andromeda.

The distance to this nebula is not known with any real accuracy. According to the Skalnate Pleso Catalogue (1951) the distance of NGC 7662 is about 1,800 light years, the actual diameter about 20,000 AU. In a more recent survey of the brighter planetaries, C.R.O'Dell (1963) derived a distance of 1,740 parsecs or about 5,600 light years, increasing the actual size to 0.8 light year, or nearly 50,000 AU. It has a faint central star that is variable, with a magnitude range of 12 to 16. The central star is a bluish dwarf with a continuous spectrum and a computed temperature of about 75,000K. The nuclei of the planetary nebulae are among the hottest stars known.

NGC 7662 is a popular planetary nebula for casual observers. A small telescope will reveal a star-like object with slight nebulosity. A 6" telescope with a magnification around 100x will reveal a slightly bluish disk, while telescopes with a primary mirror at least 16" in diameter may reveal slight color and brightness variations in the interior. [Source Wikipedia]

Processing was done with PixInsight, following (for the most part) kayronjm's tutorial of Feb. 24th. Only OIII (narrow band) was used to develop the Luminance image. R, G and B were collected for the color mix.

The image was captured with the venerable Meade 12"LX200, using the Atik 383L+ mono at F7.16 (i.e. 2182mm FL). Red, Green and Blue subs were taken at both 60s and 600s. The narrow band OIII subs were taken at 60s, 600s, and 1800s each. The 60s subs for all images was done to compensate for the extremely bright center of the nebula. Otherwise any detail there would have been blown out. The 1800s subs for the OIII subs were done to tease out the very faint halo and jet (see horizontal line at 9:00, just outside the halo). All subs were taken at 1x1 bin and -10C.

There were a ridiculous number of subs taken for this subject:

Red 600s: 10 subs (1.67 hr) on Aug 30th and Aug 31st.

Red 60s: 15 subs (0.25 hr) on Sep 4th and Sep 5th.

Green 600s: 10 subs (1.67 hr) on Aug 30th and Aug 31st.

Green 60s: 15 subs (0.25 hr) on Sep 4th.

Blue 600s: 10 subs (1.67 hr) on Aug 30th and Aug 31st.

Blue 60s: 15 subs (0.25 hr) on Sep 4th.

OIII- 1800s : 32 subs (16.00 hr) on Sep 5th and 30th, Oct 1st, 2nd 3rd and 4th.

OIII- 600s : 20 subs (3.33 hr) on Sep 20th.

OIII- 60s : 15 subs (0.25 hr) on Sep 4th.

North is up, and this is a medium crop due to the target's small size.

As the nights progressed, my Meade mount began having more difficulties with DEC control. Consequently a lot of subs were thrown out. And this led to the longer period of time (from August to October).