NGC2261 Hubble's Variable Nebula (niteman1946)

NGC2261 Hubble's Variable Nebula

NGC 2261 was discovered in 1783 by William Herschel.

NGC 2261 was imaged as Palomar Observatory's Hale Telescope's first light by Edwin Hubble on January 26, 1949, some 20 years after the Palomar Observatory project began in 1928. Hubble had studied the nebula previously at Yerkes and Mt. Wilson. Hale had taken photographic plates with a 24 inch reflecting telescope in 1916. Also, plates were taken using the same telescope in 1908 by FC Jordan, this allowed Hale to use of a blink comparator to study any changes in the nebula.

The star R Monocerotis has lit up a nearby cloud of gas and dust, but the shape and brightness slowly changes visible even in small telescopes over weeks and months, and the nebula looks like a small comet.

One explanation proposed for the variability is that dense clouds of dust near R Mon periodically block the illumination from the star. This casts a temporary shadow on the nearly clouds. [Source: Wikipedia].

CAPTURE Information:

The image was captured with the new iOptron CEM120 mount , the venerable Meade 12"LX200 SCT, and my Atik 383L+ m CCD at F7.16 (2182mm FL). Astronomik's L, R, G and B broad band filters were used. All subs (L, R, G, B) were taken at 1x1 bin, -10C, and 5 minutes.

IMAGE information -- 2018:

Lum 300s: 48 subs (4.00hr) on Nov 2nd and 4th.

Red 300s: 26 subs (2.17hr) on Nov 2nd and 5th.

Green 300s: 26 subs (2.17hr) on Nov 9th.

Blue 300s: 26 subs (2.17hr) on Nov 9th and 16th.

Processing was done with PixInsight, following (for the most part) kayronjm's tutorial of Feb. 24th, 2013 . The detail and color came out nicely. North is up and this is a slight crop due to the misalignment accumulation from the different filters and times.

COMMENTS:

This is the third posting with the iOptron mount. Guiding is pretty good and I continue to be very pleased with the mount's overall performance.

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Status	Basic success
Started	...
Astrometry.net job	2379244
PixInsight job	n/a
PixInsight queue size	n/a
PixInsight stage	n/a

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NGC2261 Hubble's Variable Nebula

NGC2261 Hubble's Variable Nebula

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NGC2261 Hubble's Variable Nebula

NGC2261 Hubble's Variable Nebula

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