The bubble nebula

The Bubble Nebula

The Bubble Nebula is 7 light-years across – about one-and-a-half times the distance from our sun to its nearest stellar neighbor, Alpha Centauri – and resides 7,100 light-years from Earth in the constellation Cassiopeia.

The seething star forming this nebula is 45 times more massive than our sun. Gas on the star gets so hot that it escapes away into space as a "stellar wind" moving at over 4 million miles per hour. This outflow sweeps up the cold, interstellar gas in front of it, forming the outer edge of the bubble much like a snowplow piles up snow in front of it as it moves forward.

As the surface of the bubble's shell expands outward, it slams into dense regions of cold gas on one side of the bubble. This asymmetry makes the star appear dramatically off-center from the bubble, with its location in the 8 o'clock position in the photo.

Dense pillars of cool hydrogen gas laced with dust appear to the left of the nebula, and more "fingers" can be seen nearly face-on, behind the translucent bubble.

The gases heated to varying temperatures emit different colors: oxygen is hot enough to emit blue light in the bubble near the star, while the cooler pillars are yellow from the combined light of hydrogen-alpha and sulphur II. The pillars are similar to the iconic columns in the "Pillars of Creation" in the Eagle Nebula. As seen with the structures in the Eagle Nebula, the Bubble Nebula pillars are being illuminated by the strong ultraviolet radiation from the brilliant star inside the bubble.

The Hubble image of the Bubble Nebula, or NGC 7635, was chosen to mark the 26th anniversary of the launch of Hubble into Earth orbit by the STS-31 space shuttle crew on April 24, 1990 and I though of making a comparison of my bubble with the Hubble Bubble.

Equipment used:

Mount: Dark Frame hypertuned EQ6

Modified Sky-Watcher Explorer 200p (Baader Diamond Steeltrack focuser)

Aplanatic coma corrector

ASI294MM Pro Cmos camera, cooled at - 15°C

8x1.25" ZWO USB filterwheel

Chroma 1.25" RGB and 3nm SHO filters

ZWO ASI290m Mini guide camera

ZWO OAG

Qhyccd Polemaster

Software used:

Eqmod, SGP - Sequence Generator Pro, PHD2, Stellarium, SharpCap for polar alignment

Dat 16..08.2024 to 17.09.2024

Location: Hemel Hempstead, Hertfordshire, bortle 5

Frames:

Chroma Blue 1.25": 10×60″(10′)

Chroma Green 1.25": 10×60″(10′)

Chroma H-alpha 3nm Bandpass 1.25": 50×120″(1h 40′)

Chroma H-alpha 3nm Bandpass 1.25": 30×600″(5h)

Chroma OIII 3nm Bandpass 1.25": 50×120″(1h 40′)

Chroma OIII 3nm Bandpass 1.25": 40×600″(6h 40′)

Chroma Red 1.25": 10×60″(10′)

Chroma SII 3nm Bandpass 1.25": 21×120″(42′)

Chroma SII 3nm Bandpass 1.25": 89×600″(14h 50′)

Total integration time:

31h 2′

Stacked and calibrated in AstroPixel Processor and processed in Pixinsight (with help from Blur Xterminator, Star Xterminator and Noise Xterminator) and Photoshop CC 2024

Copyright: Emil Andronic