NGC 2359, Thor’s Helmet

NGC2359-Final4bC

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NGC 2359 is a very beautiful and delicate deep sky object in the constellation Canis Major. It is an emission nebula, which is powered by a Wolf-Rayet star (WR7), seen in the center of the bluish region. Wolf-Rayet stars are very hot and extremely massive stars, in a pre-supernova stage. The bubble shape was formed due to the strong stellar winds (very fast charged particles, mostly protons). The whole nebulosity is rich in both HII and OIII. The regions richer in HII appear magenta-red and the ones richer in OIII show a blue-greenish hue. This deep narrowband image was taken through only these two filters and shows a great deal of nebulosity not very often seen in images of this nebula. The color of the stars was obtained with shorter RGB exposures.

Additional Information

Object

Name(s): NGC 2359; Thor’s Helmet; Duck Nebula

Type:  Emission Nebula

RA:  07h 18m 35s

Dec: -13ΒΊ 12’ 03”

Constellation: Canis Major

Size (arcmin): 8×6

Magnitude: +11.5

Distance: 12,000 ly

Image

Date: 2016-02-15 thru 2016-02-28

Location: iTelescope.net, SSO near Coonabarabran, NSW Australia

Size (arcmin): 37×35

Telescope: Planewave CDK 20” f/6.8

Camera: SBIG STX16803 (4096x4096pix)

Guiding: Astrodon MonsterMOAG off-axis guider

Total exposure: 18 hours (Ha: 8.5 h; OIII: 8 h; RGB: 1.5 h)

Processing: CCDStack, Photoshop CC 2016 and PixInsight

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