Messier 1 - The Crab Nebula. Also know as NGC 1952 and Taurus A.

Now THIS is a pretty cool object! This is the remains of a star that went Supernova and was seen as a bright daytime star back in 1054 by Chinese Astronomers. It was discovered by English astronomer John Bevis in 1731. It was also independently discovered by Charles Messier in 1758 when he was trying to find the return of Halley's Comet. He thought he found it but what he actually found was this object. Charles then thought it might be a good idea to make a catalog of objects that could be confused with comets so that comet searchers would run into the same problem he had when looking for Halley's Comet. The resulting Catalog is now known as The Messier list.

In 1840, it was observed by William Parsons, the 3rd Earl of Rosse, who observed it using his 36" reflecting telescope (a monster scope back then) and did hand sketch that kind of looked like a Crab - thus it's name. Unfortunate if you ask me - as no one else in the history of the world thinks this thing looks like a damn crab!

This nebula is 6500 light years away and located in the constellation Taurus and the Perseus Arm of the Milky Way. It has a diameter of 11 light years and is expanding at the rate of 1500 kilometers per second! At its center lays the Crab Pulsar, which is a neutron star about 17-19 miles in diameter - which is spinning 30.2 times per second! This spinning neutron star is emitting pulses of radiation from gamma rays to radio waves!

The filaments seen in the nebula are brought into significant relief with the use of narrowband filters. With the normal RGB they are much more difficult to see. These filaments are the remains of the original stars atmosphere that was blasted away when it went supernova. They consist largely of ionized helium and hydrogen, as well as carbon, oxygen, nitrogen, iron, neon and sulfur.

This image is the result of about 6 hours of integration using both narrowband and broadband RGB filters. The colors are the result of a narrowband/RGB blend using the SHO Hubble Palette which provides false colors.

This shot was taken during the incredible weather we have had for the past two days - a rare thing in November.

I was really surprised at the resulting look of the image - I had a lot of fun working on this project and I hope you enjoy it as well!

Image Details:

20 x 500 seconds, bin 1x1 @ -15C, unity gain, ZWO Gen II Ha Filter

20 x 500 seconds, bin 1x1 @ -15C, unity gain, ZWO Gen II O3 Filter

20 x 500 seconds, bin 1x1 @ -15C,unity gain, ZWO Gen II S2 Filter

10 x 60 seconds, bin 1x1 @ -15C,unity gain, ZWO Gen II R Filter

10 x 60 seconds, bin 1x1 @ -15C,unity gain, ZWO Gen II G Filter

10 x 60 seconds, bin 1x1 @ -15C,unity gain, ZWO Gen II G Filter

45 Bias exposures

25 Dark exposures

45 Ha Flats

45 O3 Flats

45 S2 Flats

45 R flats

45 B flats

45 B flats

Capture Hardware:

Scope: Astrophysics 130mm Starfire F/8.35 APO refractor

Guide Scope: Televue 76mm Doublet

Camera: ZWO ASI1600mm-pro with ZWO Filter wheel with ZWO filter set

Guide Camera: ZWO ASI290Mini

Focus Motor: Pegasus Astro Focus Cube 2

Camera Rotator: Pegasus Astro Falcon

Mount: Ioptron CEM60

Polar Alignment: Polemaster camera

Capture Software: PHD2 Guider, Sequence Generator Pro controller

Image Processing: Pixinsight, Photoshop - assisted by Coffee, extensive processing indecision and second guessing, editor regret and much swearing…..