NGC 6826

Planetary Nebula in the Constellation Cygnus

The "Blinking Planetary" - Two  Different Views

The view above is the traditional view, showing the inner core of the nebula.  The above image was taken in November, 2005 with my C14 OTA and ST-2000XCM
color one-shot CCD camera, using a stack of 10 x 30 second exposures.  See image below for a different look that shows the ancient outer gaseous shell that blew off from the central star thousands of years ago.

In the above view, the center core area of the nebula was overexposed in order to capture the ghostly outer ionized gas shell that remains from the star's explosion thousands of years ago.  Also at the bottom left edge of the field of view is the very distant galaxy PGC 63573.

Bottom Image Details:

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  • Instrument:  TMB 152 Triplet APO Refractor @ f/7.9 (1200mm) focal length
  • Mount:  Astro-Physics AP-1200GTO
  • Image Scale:  1.27 arc-seconds/pixel
  • Filters & Exposure Times:  
    • L:   12 x 5 minutes binned 1 x 1
    • R:  12 x 5 minutes binned 2 x 2
      G:    6 x 5 minutes binned 2 x 2
      B:    6 x 5 minutes binned 2 x 2 
  • Camera: SBIG ST-2000XM with CFW8 Color Filter Wheel
  • Software: Maxim DL/CCD, Adobe Photoshop CS2, RC Astro Gradient X-Terminator, Neat Image Pro
  • Location: C.A.A.S. East Observatory, Little Rock, AR., El. 650ft
  • Date: October 6th, 2008