The Unusually Shaped Red Rectangle Nebula - HD44179
14-Dec-2015
The unusual shape of the Red Rectangle is likely due to a thick dust torus which pinches the otherwise spherical outflow into tip-touching cone shapes. Because we view the torus edge-on, the boundary edges of the cone shapes seem to form an X. The distinct rungs suggest the outflow occurs in fits and starts.
More information: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_Rectangle_Nebula
Image:
- 10x 300s red bin1x1 + 16x flat + 37x dark + 120x bias
- 6x 600s red bin1x1 + 16x flat + 37x dark + 120x bias
- 8x 180s green bin1x1 + 16x flat + 37x dark + 120x bias
- 7x 180s blue bin1x1 + 16x flat + 37x dark + 120x bias
Total exposure time: 2 hours 35 minutes.
Hardware:
- Celestron EdgeHD 1100 with CGEM DX mount
- QSI 683-wsg Camera @ -15°C
- Astronomik Type 2c LRGB filters
- Orion StarShoot Autoguider
- Starlight Xpress Adaptive Optics
Location:
- Orange zone in Brisbane, Australia. (Bortle 7)
- Above average seeing + new moon.
Software:
- Captured with AstroArt 6
- Guiding with PHD2 + PHD_Dither
- Aladin 8.0: Planning & camera alignment.
- CCDInspector: Image analysis & rejection
- CCDStack 2+: Calibrate, align, normalize, stack, curves, create artificial luminance, combine RGB.
- Photoshop CC: Reduce noise, high pass filter, shadows/highlights, integrate L+RGB, color balance.