Celestial hemisphere:  Northern  ·  Constellation: Draco (Dra)  ·  Contains:  NGC 6552
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NGC 6543, Dark Rift Astro
NGC 6543
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NGC 6543, Dark Rift Astro
NGC 6543
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Description

This is NGC 6543, the Cat’s Eye Nebula. It is a planetary nebula (expanding, glowing ionized gas ejected from red giant stars) located within the constellation Draco. The nebula is surrounded by a halo that appears as a hexagon, which are gasses ejected by the star at the center. This is a difficult target to image and process because of the brightness of the core and the dimness of the surrounding halo.

I imagined it for three nights, two nights capturing H-alpha and OIII, and one night of broadband RGB. Individual sub-exposures were 2 minutes and 5 minutes each. The total exposure time is over 11 hours. The core and the halo are represented in Ha and OIII. Broadband RGB color stars have been superimposed.

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