1,035 minutes Ha-OIII 7nm, 700 minutes SII (1X1)
Takahashi 180C 180mm Dall-Kirkham telescope
ZWO ASI2600MC-Air (26 Megapixel astronomical color camera)
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Vol. 2: Emission Colors Three
The Crab Nebula is cataloged as M1, the first on Charles Messier's famous list of things which are not comets. Today, the Crab is now known to be a supernova remnant, an expanding cloud of debris from the explosion of a massive star.
The violent birth of the Crab was witnessed by Chinese astronomers in the year 1054. Roughly 10 light-years across today, the nebula is still expanding at a rate of over 1,000 kilometers per second.
The colors in this image do not match what we would see with our eyes, even if they were far more sensitive. Instead, they yield insight into the composition of this amazing stellar fossil. For example, the orange filaments are the tattered remains of the star and consist mostly of hydrogen. Blue reveals the presence of neutral oxygen. Yellow and green identifies ionized sulfur. These elements were expelled into the surrounding interstellar medium during the supernova explosion.
This image was produced under Bortle 5- 6 skies.
Crab Nebula Multi-spectral Suite Index
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Click here for a larger image!
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