June 20, 2022
NGC6543
This is NGC 6543, the Cat’s Eye Nebula. It is a planetary nebula (expanding, glowing ionized gas ejected from red giant stars) located within the constellation Draco. The nebula is surrounded by a halo that appears as a hexagon, which are gasses ejected by the star at the center. This is a difficult target to image and process because of the brightness of the core and the dimness of the surrounding halo.
I imagined it for three nights, two nights capturing H-alpha and OIII, and one night of broadband RGB. Individual sub-exposures were 2 minutes and 5 minutes each. The total exposure time is over 11 hours. The core and the halo are represented in Ha and OIII. Broadband RGB color stars have been superimposed.
93x120” (3h 6’) (gain: 100.00) -10°C
Optolong L-eNhance 2” Optolong L-eNhance: 110x120” (3h 40’) (gain: 100.00) -10°C
Optolong L-eNhance 2” Optolong L-eNhance: 54x300” (4h 30’) (gain: 100.00) -10°C