Sh2-240, Simeis 147 Auriga-Taurus Border
Imaged from Nova Scotia, Winter, 2014
A Work Forever In Progress! Faint, but Huge!
This is a very faint object swamped by the rich star fields along the border of Auriga and Taurus. Note how large an area this super nova remnant subtends on the night sky in comparison to the full moon, here added digitally for scale! Were only human eyes sensitive to the light of hydrogen alpha emission, we would readily see this knotted skein of fibrous tendrils glowing large in the night sky on moonless nights. As it is, the object is invisible to the eye even in telescopes! It bears the name Simeis147 or Simeiz147 from its entry in a catalogue compiled by the Crimean Astrophysical Observatory, located at Simeis in the Ukraine, at which it was discovered. Despite its huge apparent size on the night sky, it is so faint, and so ensnarled in the rich field of stars surrounding it, that it was discovered on red-sensitive photographic plates only in 1952! It is the expanding remnant of a star which exploded some 40,000 years ago and harbors a pulsar at its core. It is some 3,000 light years distant from earth.
HaRGB Mosaic Combination
Data
Taking Camera SBIG STL11002M
Nova Scotia, Winter 2014 ~mag 6.4 @-20C
Imaging OTA
Takahashi FSQ106EDXIII with QE Reducer
Equivalent focal length and ratio
385mm f3.6
Mount
AP1600
Guiding
PHD2/MMOAG/Lodestar X2
HaRGB Combination - Total Integration Time 46hrs
Three Panel Mosaic-Each Panel Ha-25X30min, R4x10min, G-4x10min, B4X10min-Astrodon 5nm Ha and Gen 2 I series RGB Filters. All Binned 1X1
Calibration and Stacking
Darks,Flats and Bias - PixInsight
Processed
PixInsight, Affinity Photo v.1.9 and Bob Franke's CCDBand-Aid
Annotated
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