Instrument

Takahashi FSQ-106ED @ f/5.0 (530 mm F.L.)  Captured at 3.5 arcsec/pixel.  Shown resampled to 16.8 arcsec/pixel.

Mount

Paramount ME

Camera

SBIG STL-11000 w/ internal filter wheel, AstroDon 6nm Filters

Acquisition Data

1/17/2009 to 2/19/2009 Chino Valley... with CCDAutoPilot3

Exposure

SII    600 min. (20 x 30 min. bin 1x1)

Hα    480 min.  (16 x 30 min. bin 1x1)
OIII  420 min.  (14 x 30 min. bin 1x1)

SII,Ha & OIII are mapped to RGB respectively

Click here for a natural color image.
Click here for an Hα B&W image

Software

CCDSoft, CCDStack, Photoshop CS w/ the Fits Liberator plugin, Noel Carboni's actions and Russell Croman's GradientXTerminator

CCDStack to calibrate, register, normalize, data reject & combine.

PhotoShop for color combine & non-linear stretching.

North is to the top.

IC 443, the Jellyfish Nebula, is a Galactic supernova remnant, in the constellation Gemini, that occurred 8,000 years ago. It is one of the best studied cases of supernova remnants, interacting with surrounding molecular clouds. IC 443 spans about 65 light-years at an estimated distance of 5,000 light-years.

The large expanse, to the left and to the top of the image, is the emission nebula Sh2-249... at a distance of 5200 light years.

Roll your mouse over the image to see the location of the emission and/or reflection nebula IC 444 and the recently discovered HoCr-1 planetary nebula.

HoCr-1 (Howell-Crisp 1) was discovered by amateur astronomers Michael Howell and Richard Crisp in 2006.