Celestial hemisphere:  Northern  ·  Constellation: Taurus (Tau)  ·  Contains:  Sh2-240
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Scarlet Lightening  (Sh2-240, Simeis 147, SNR G180. 0-01.7), Gary Lopez
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Scarlet Lightening (Sh2-240, Simeis 147, SNR G180. 0-01.7)

Getting plate-solving status, please wait...
Scarlet Lightening  (Sh2-240, Simeis 147, SNR G180. 0-01.7), Gary Lopez
Powered byPixInsight

Scarlet Lightening (Sh2-240, Simeis 147, SNR G180. 0-01.7)

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Description

Sharpless 2-240, known as the Spaghetti Nebula, is a large supernova remnant straddling the border between the constellations Auriga and Taurus. The glowing gas filaments cover nearly 3 degrees of the sky, a cloud of stellar debris that is about 150 light years across. The explosion occurred about 40,000 years ago, the light reaching Earth a few thousand years later. A spinning neutron star or pulsar is all that remains of the original star’s core.

This image is an HaRGB rendition. The data were collected over a four week period in November and December 2019, during three clear nights between rain storms. This is one of the faintest objects that I have attempted. Even coupling a fast OTA (WO GT 71 refractor reduced to 336mm FL and f/4.7), a sensitive camera (ZWO ASI1600MM Pro using 300 gain), and 300 second exposures produced very faint light subs. I found that I needed to collect more than more than 25 hours of Ha data to visualize the detail and control the noise in this object. I collected OII data as well, but the very uneven HFR of the subs diminished quality of an HaOIII version, so I settled on the HaRGB approach.

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