Celestial hemisphere:  Northern  ·  Constellation: Cassiopeia (Cas)  ·  Contains:  Bubble Nebula  ·  NGC 7635
NGC7635 Bubble Nebula, Joe Niemeyer
NGC7635 Bubble Nebula
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NGC7635 Bubble Nebula

NGC7635 Bubble Nebula, Joe Niemeyer
NGC7635 Bubble Nebula
Powered byPixInsight

NGC7635 Bubble Nebula

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This is my image of the fascinating Bubble Nebula (NGC 7635), 7,100 light years from us in the constellation Cassiopeia. You can definitely see how this nebula got its name. The bubble is a shock front created by stellar wind travelling 4 million miles per hour from its massive young central star, SAO 20575, which is about 45 times the mass of our Sun. This star appears off-center toward the right side of the bubble since the right side of the shock wave is encountering a dense region of gases. This young star is a mere 4 million years old and is now fusing helium since it has blown off its hydrogen gas. It will explode in a spectacular supernova sometime in the next 10 to 20 million years. Like all bubbles, it will pop when the star explodes. I would love to see that!

The Bubble Nebula is 7 light years in diameter and embedded in a giant molecular cloud of hydrogen that is ionized by the same central star. You can see huge pillars of dust and gas to the right of the bubble where new stars are actively forming. NGC 7635 was discovered by the famed astronomer William Herschel in the late 18th century. It is a popular astrophotography subject since it is so unusual, yet challenging since it has such a broad dynamic range of light.

I made this image from thirty 300-second exposures through my Baader dual-bandpass filter (Hα and OIII) at 2312mm prime focal length, calibrated with 20 each dark, flat, and dark flat frames. I stacked the frames with Astro Pixel Processor and post-processed with Photoshop utilizing the StarXTerminator, Astronomy Tools, and Topaz DeNoise AI plugins.

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NGC7635 Bubble Nebula, Joe Niemeyer