Dolphin Head Nebula (SH2-308) (DoubleStarPhotography)

Dolphin Head Nebula (SH2-308)

Sh2-308, also known as the Dolphin Nebula, appears near a 'Cosmic Reef' of sorts, the HII region catalogued as Sh2-303. According to a 1982 study, the Sh2-303 nebula is ionised by the Wolf-Rayet star WR 6 along with Sh2-304 and Sh2-308. A look at this region in Ha suggests that Sh2-303 is the brightest part of a ring that appears to surround several B class giant stars, including LS92 (B2/3 III) and HD 51200 (B2 III/IV). So it appears that WR 6 may not be the only ionising star for this nebula. (GalaxyMap.org)

The Dolphin Nebula itself is a faint nebula created by a massive Wolf-Rayet star; the bright star near the center of the nebula, known as EZ Cannis Majoris, EZ CMa or WR 6. Wolf-Rayet stars are fairly massive stars that can have 20 times the mass of the Sun, and WR 6 is thought to be in a pre-supernova phase in it's life cycle.

The Dolphin nebula lies some 5,200 light-years away from Earth, and spans a diameter of approximately 60 light-years......which from Earth corresponds to a angular diameter similar to that of the full Moon. This deep sky object is somewhat difficult to be capture from my northern hemisphere location due to its relatively low altitude from my imaging location.

This is the second shot I've used the Askar Color Magic D1 (Ha & Oiii) 6mn dual band filter for, and am again very impressed and pleased with the results and how well the filter controlled for light pollution while at the same time capturing a great deal of light in the narrow bands as shown in this 6 hour image.

Original
Final
C

FriendlyCosmos
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Processed with Photoshop
Siril Enthusiasts
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The refractors!
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Askar Color Magic 6nm Duo Narrowband D1/D2 Filters for color cameras

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Status	Advanced success
Started	...
Astrometry.net job	7085147
PixInsight job	KQD0T0FSLY2TNGOE48WF3A1POKIX6CDJ
PixInsight queue size	n/a
PixInsight stage	TASK_LOG

RA (center)	06h54m22s.91
RA (top/left)	06h49m16s.58
RA (top/right)	06h48m23s.86
RA (bottom/right)	06h59m38s.47
RA (bottom/left)	07h00m12s.90

Dec (center)	-23°09′06″.1
Dec (top/left)	-21°10′19″.8
Dec (top/right)	-25°00′38″.4
Dec (bottom/right)	-25°07′09″.8
Dec (bottom/left)	-21°16′50″.10

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