Bubble Nebula
NGC 7635 / Sharpless 162 / Caldwell 11, NGC 7538, M52 / NGC 7654
This is an actual bubble - altough it is 7 light-years across. That is 1.5x the distance to the nearest star to us. The hot young star in the center of the bubble is shedding its outer layers (it is a Wolf-Rayet star, SAO 20575). While that mass is being blown away from the star by the stellar wind it is also excited by the intense radiation. The nearby molecular cloud is glowing for the same reason. This star is going to become a supernova in about 10-20 million years and will collapse into a black hole.
What makes this region of the sky even more interesting is the (apparenty) nearby M52 open cluster (which is visible with just binoculars).
Another Wolf-Rayet star we have imaged before is in the Crescent Nebula.
Technical details
| Details | |
|---|---|
| Telescope | Skywatcher Esprit 100ED (f/5.5) |
| Filter | Astrodon LRGB Gen2 E-Series |
| Coma corrector | - |
| Field flattener | Skywatcher Esprit (1x) |
| Camera | QHYCCD 268m, -15°C, Mode 5, Gain 0/56, Offset 5 |
| Resolution | 6252x4176 |
| Light frames | L: 30 (60s), 30m |
| R: 6 (120s), 12m | |
| G: 6 (120s), 12m | |
| B: 6 (120s), 12m | |
| H: 34 (300s), 2h50m | |
| S: 25 (300s), 2h5m | |
| O: 24 (300s), 2h | |
| 8h1m total | |
| Flat frames | 16 each |
| Darkflat frames | - |
| Dark frames | - |
| Bias frames | - |
| Location | Kalkalpen Nationalpark, Austria |
| Local time | 2023-09-04 23:11 - 03:07 (66 frames) |
| 2023-09-25 20:23 - 23:52 (24 frames) | |
| 2023-09-26 21:09 - 02:13 (41 frames) | |
| Field of View | 2°25' x 1°37' (rotation 0°) |
| Image Center | 23h19m11s +61°31'18 |