Spaghetti Nebula

Spaghetti All Night

 in Blog  tagged RedCat 51 / Sharpless 2-240 / Simeis 147 / Spaghetti Nebula

My first image of the Winter in Borrego Springs, CA is the Spaghetti Nebula, cataloged as Simeis 147 and Sharpless 2-240.  This is a very large, dim supernova remnant (SNR) in the constellation Taurus.  It’s about 3,000 light-years from Earth, but the more interesting question is its age, and I couldn’t find any information about that.  Generally, as SNRs evolve they expand, become dimmer, and more diffuse.  This certainly is large and dim, but still has amazingly well defined structure. This is also my first image with the William Optics RedCat 51 telescope/lens.  Paired with the ASI1600 camera, it gives […]

Spaghetti (with Tomato Sauce)

 in Blog  tagged narrowband / Sh2-240 / Simeis 147 / Spaghetti Nebula

This is a bi-color version of the Spaghetti Nebula.  I wasn’t able to put together a suitable rig for the wider angle lens, so just captured O-3 (oxygen) with the same 200mm setup.  Hydrogen is assigned to red and oxygen to blue and green.  In other photos of this nebula I found online very few bothered with the S-2 channel, as there is so little there.  Well, as I said before, even the hydrogen is very dim.  Oxygen is even dimmer:  You can see just a hint of it in blue/green near the top. I suspect that this is pushing […]

Mama Mia!

 in Blog  tagged h-alpha / Sh2-240 / Simeis 147 / Spaghetti Nebula

There are lots of things to be surprised about these days, starting with how long it has been since I posted anything here!  It has been very busy for several weeks here at Wa-chur-ed Observatory, including product development, order fulfillment, and my daughter’s wedding!  But it has not included any astro-photography – until last night. The Spaghetti Nebula, also known as Simeis 147 and Sh2-240, is a supernova remnant in Taurus.  It doesn’t have any spicy meatballs in it, but it is surprisingly dim – probably the dimmest target I have ever attempted.  It’s also very large at over 3 […]