We were blessed with clear sky last week. I made the most of the good conditions to photograph a few different targets, several well known ones and several less so, as they are small and quite faint supernova remnants.

Targets photographed included:

• The Betta Fish Nebula, also known as the Mermaid Nebula, which is a supernova remnant located in Centaurus. It is part of the larger supernova remnant G296.5+10.0, which is estimated to be 14,000 years old. This image is made up from a series of 10 minute exposures of hydrogen alpha (Ha) and Oxygen III (Oiii) collected from using a 12″ F4 Newtonian telescope. It has been processed, using Pixinsight, into a HOO image:

• Henize 70 (also called N70), which is a faint emission nebula and a luminous superbubble of interstellar gas about 300 light-years in diameter, blown by winds from hot, massive stars and supernova explosions. It is located in the Large Magellanic Cloud and is about 165,000 light years from Earth. This image was processed in Pixinsight using R,G,B,Ha and Oiii data collected using a 12″ F4 Newtonian telescope.

• NGC 3576 – The Statue of Liberty Nebula, which is a bright emission nebula in the Sagittarius arm of the Milky Way. It is also approximately 100 light years across and 9000 light-years away from Earth. A popular nickname is “The Statue of Liberty Nebula” because of the distinctive shape in the middle of the nebula. This image was processed in Pixinsight using R,G,B, L, Ha and Oiii data collected using a 12″ F4 Newtonian telescope.

• NGC 3372 – Eta Carina. This one will be well known to all. The image was put together from R,G,B,L,Ha and Oiii data collected from a 12″ F4 Newtonian telescope.

• M83 – Messier 83 or M83, also known as the Southern Pinwheel Galaxy and NGC 5236, is a barred spiral galaxy.  It is approximately 15 million light-years from earth. This image was processed in Pixinsight from R,G,B,L and Ha images captured on a 12″ F4 Newtonian telescope.

• NGC 6188 – Fighting Dragons of Ara, which is a star forming nebula, and is sculpted by the massive, young stars that have recently formed there. It is about 4,000 light years from Earth. This image was processed in Pixinsight from colour and dual narrow band (Ha & Oiii) images captured using a 100mm triplet apo refractor at F5.5.