Celestial hemisphere:  Northern  ·  Constellation: Draco (Dra)  ·  Contains:  Cat's Eye Nebula  ·  IC 4677  ·  NGC 6543  ·  NGC 6552  ·  PK096+29.1
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The Cat's Eye Nebula, NGC6543, Rick Veregin
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The Cat's Eye Nebula, NGC6543

Acquisition type: Lucky imaging
Getting plate-solving status, please wait...
The Cat's Eye Nebula, NGC6543, Rick Veregin
Powered byPixInsight

The Cat's Eye Nebula, NGC6543

Acquisition type: Lucky imaging

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Description

The Cat's Eye planetary nebula is 3,300 light years from earth, and is a result of the death throes of the central star, whose fast stellar wind is pushing out its mass at 1900 km/s. The inner part of the nebula was formed about 1,000 years ago, when the central star expelled its outer envelope. The complex structure in the core results from the interaction of the stellar wind with that expelled gas, which is excited to fluoresce by the ultraviolet light from the central star, a Wolf-Rayet star with a temperature of 80,000 K. The main part of the nebula is hotter than the sun at 7000 to 9000K. The extended halo was formed much earlier, from the star's red giant stage about 15,000 years ago, and is even hotter at 50,000 K.

This image is the most difficult I have worked on to date. The central part is incredibly bright, but the detail is small. The outer regions are faint, very difficult from the city working without an OIII or Ha filter. This image was layered in Photoshop to deal with the wide dynamic range and detail:

Bottom layer: Startools central core with good detail and color

2nd (Luminosity) layer: PIPP central core isolated for best nights >10,000 raw images→AutoStakkert!3 stack of best 8% with 3x drizzle→Registax wavelets for maximum detail.

3rd layer: Startools binned to 30%, develop faint nebulosity with core overexposed.

Merging the layers is tricky, lots of trial and mostly error...

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