Click here for full resolution image
This is a wide field image of the Running Chicken nebula (IC 2948), that has been blended with a higher resolution image of the nebula’s core taken with the CDK 20″ (displayed here). The image has been taken with narrowband filters (only Ha and OIII; no SII frames were taken, because the High Res images had been taken without this filter) and mapped to natural color. The nebula shows high detail in its core, including the Bok globules that have made this Nebula famous (although its Bok globules were discovered by another astronomer, David Thackeray, and many people know them as “Thackeray globules”). More information about the higher resolution image can be found here.
Additional Information
Object
Name(s): IC 2948. The Running Chicken Nebula
Type: Emission Nebula
RA: 11h 35m 47s
Dec: -63º 11’ 06”
Constellation: Centaurus
Size (arcmin): 75×50
Magnitude: +4.5
Distance: 400 ly
Image
Date: 2017-07-07 thru 2017-07-21
Location: iTelescope.net, SSO near Coonabarabran, NSW Australia
Size (arcmin): 170×164
Telescope: TOA 130mm f/5.5 refractor (wide field) and Planewave CDK 20” f/6.8 (core)
Camera: SBIG STX16803 (4096x4096pix) in both cases
Guiding: Astrodon MonsterMOAG off-axis guider
Total exposure: 16.6 hours (Ha: 8.5 h; OIII: 7.5 h; RGB 36 min (only stars))
Processing: CCDStack, Photoshop CC 2017