Bubble Nebula in narrowband light (NGC 7635)

clic for 50% size 1166 x 886 (234 kB)

clic here for 80% size 1863 x 1415 (457 kB)

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clic here for 80% size 2337 x 1880 (453 kB)

 


About this Image

NGC 7635, the Bubble Nebula, a nebula that is being shaped by a young hot star in its center.
The star 40 times more massive than the Sun is blowing a giant bubble of material into space. The dense gas surrounding the star is shaping the castoff material into a bubble. The bubble's surface is not smooth like a soap bubble's. Its rippled appearance is due to encounters with gases of different thickness.
The shell is being shaped by a very strong stellar wind of material and radiation which is emanating from the bright star forming shock waves. 11,300 light-years from us, the Bubble Nebula lies in the constellation Cassiopeia.
The top image uses H-alpha as red and Oxygen-III light as green and blue, the image below is a pure H-alpha image.
North is to the left.

Checkout the mapped version using the Hubble palette: here.

Check a wider view here.

Compare an image of the Hubble Space Telescope: here.

Checkout a flash animation blending the normal image with the mapped one: here (press F11 for full screen).



Technical Details
Optics

16" Cassegrain in secondary focus at f/10

Mount MK-100 GEM
Camera SBIG STL-11000M at -15C, 1x1 bin, internal filter wheel
Filters Baader 7 nm Ha, Astronomik 13 nm O-III
Date Sep 01+04 2006.
Location Wildon/Austria
Sky Conditions mag 5 sky, seeing 1.3-1.6", temperature 16 C
Exposure Ha:O-III = 210:270 minutes (30-minute sub-exposures)
Processing Image aquisition in Maxim DL; calibration, aligning, stacking in CCDStack; mild wavelets applied;
Photoshop: levels and curves, color balance, O3 used as green and blue, H-alpha as red and luminance, unsharp mask, blurring for background