Eight Burst Planetary Nebula (NGC 3132) (Bruce Rohrlach)

Eight Burst Planetary Nebula (NGC 3132)

A very different type of target tonight. I pulled out the ASI224mc cam which I haven't used in a while and decided to see how it performs on small planetary nebula. I'm kind of happy with this quickie on NGC 3132 (The Eight Burst nebula) in the constellation Vela. This little gem is close to zenith at this time of the year.

Stack of 50 subs at 15 seconds (12.5mins exposure)

The stack of 50 at 15 seconds seems to go a lot deeper, with less noise, with the bi-secting line visible that is so characteristic of this planetary nebula, and better definition of the outer ejected gas shells. I'll give this another go this season with around an hour integration (i.e. 5-6 times what was used in this image) to see how 'deep' I can go in order to better enhance the multiple outer shells of gas that have been ejected from this star. Nice to do one-shot colour for a change too, after shooting so much material in mono recently.

So what exactly is a planetary nebula? Most planetary nebulae form at the end of the star's life, and are a relatively short-lived phenomenon, lasting a few tens of thousands of years, compared to a typical stellar lifetime spanning several billion years. As a star evolves and expands to form a red giant, it's atmosphere is shed off or dissipated in a series of violent convulsions. Ultraviolet radiation from the residual hot luminous core, called a planetary nebula nucleus, ionizes the ejected material. Absorbed ultraviolet light energises the shell of nebulous gas around the central star, causing it to appear as a brightly coloured planetary nebula.

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Status	Basic failed
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Astrometry.net job	2644569
PixInsight job	n/a
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