To-date, Star HD 148937 is believed to the be the only magnetic O-type star known to be surrounded by a nebula. At a size 40 times as massive as our own Sun, HD148937 is rare, hot and quite the spectacular artist!
What makes HD 148937 so interesting is that it is, by far, the most massive Galactic star with a detected magnetic field, and this has given rise to studies (Mahy et al. 2016) focusing on the evolutionary state of not just the star but its close bipolar ejecta nebula: NGC 6164 and NGC 6165 (known to comprise the "Dragon's Egg") and their formation as circumstellar nebulous regions. When considering this target, more time was given (> 28 hours) to OIII integration to emphasize the blue halo, the ellipsoidal wind-blown shells. As NGC 6164/5 are relative bright, less than 8 hours for both Ha and SII were integrated to showcase the ionized nebula's - almost a figure "8" shape - spherically symmetric Strömgren sphere.
The Dragon's Egg has always been a favourite of mine and it is the first project I've submitted on Astrobin. The image presented and its data was captured over several evenings during the 20th May 2023 through to the 14th July 2023, each night taking advantage of when the moon was below the horizon. What I love most about the target is that the star HD 148937 is still in it's prime, leading researchers to believe the creation of its surrounding ionized gasses to be due to the star's high rotation rate, expelling materials during earlier high-activity phases to create the beautiful blue halos and the magnetic field driven inner egg coining its name.
Thank you to my wife, Tarran for her patience, love and support!
Also, a shoutout to Gary
@Gary JONES for his wonderful Edge Instruments cable router and the many evenings enjoying a whisky as the data rolled in!
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