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Thursday, March 15, 2012

Supernova remnant IC 443



This image might be the last image for the Spring season 2012. We'll be out of astronomical darkness at 08.04.2012 and nights are getting shorter very fast. I will try to enlarge this image with one panel, to show the nearby NGC 2175 (Sh2-252), the "Monkey Head Nebula"

IC 443
A supernova remnant in constellation Gemini

HST-palette, from the emission of ionized elements, R=Sulfur, G=Hydrogen and B=Oxygen.
Note. A largish image, about 2 meg and 1600 x 1200 pixels.

A closeup
Note. No sharpening or star reduction used, just a perfect focus is maintained.


IC 443, also known as Sharpless 248 (Sh2-248) or the "Jellyfish Nebula", is a supernova remnant in the constellation Gemini at distance of about 5000 light years. The actual size of the SNR is roughly 70 light years. This image spans about 5 degrees of sky. (Ten Moons side by side in the sky.) 
At top Right lays an open group, Messier 35
At bottom Right, the Sharpless object 247, Sh2-247, can be seen as a bright dot.


Image is in visual spectrum from narrowband channels.

Older versions

Older version, shot with Tokina AT-X 300mm f2.8 lens and QHY9 at February 2009, can be seen here:
http://astroanarchy.blogspot.com/2009/02/ic443-in-hst-palette.html  Colors in this new image are partly borrowed from this older one.

A study about the apparent scale in the sky can be seen here:
http://astroanarchy.blogspot.com/2011/07/ic-443-snr-scale-in-sky-zoom-in-series.html

A closeup in HST-palette. Meade LX200 GPS 12" telescope at f5,  QHY9 cooled astronomical camera and Baader narrowband filter set. Total exposure time ~12h. Original blog post and details: 


Technical details:

Processing work flow:
Image acquisition, MaxiDL v5.07.
Stacked and calibrated in CCDStack2.
Levels, curves and color combine in PS CS3.

Optics, Canon EF 200mm camera lens at f1.8
Camera, QHY9
Guiding, Meade LX200 GPS 12" and a Lodestar guider
Image Scale, ~5 arc-seconds/pixel
Only four 1200s exposures for H-alpha emission.
Other channels, O-III and S-II, are from an older image of mine.
(Link above, under "Older versions")





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