NGC40: NGC40 is a planetary nebula (a nebula formed by the ejection of the outer gas layers of a star approximately the size of our sun at the end of its life) visually located in the constellation Cepheus, about 4000 light-years away from Earth. The nebula shines at magnitude 10.7; the central star is fairly bright for a central star of a planetary nebula (about magnitude 11.6), has a mass of around 0.7 solar masses. NGC40 has an extended halo (a small portion of which is visible here, just above the bright part of the nebula).

Technical Information:

LRGB: 450:150:105:150 (Luminance layer consists of 10 forty-five minute images, unbinned; R, G and B consist of fifteen-minute images, all unbinned).

Equipment: 16" RCOS at about f/9, and an SBIG STL-11000M with internal filter wheel (Astrodon filter set), guided with an SBIG AOL, on a Bisque Paramount ME German Equatorial Mount.

Image Acquisition/Camera Control: Maxim DL, controlled with ACP and TheSky.

Processing: All images calibrated (darks and dawn flats), aligned, sigma reject performed, and combined in CCDStack. Luminance layer deconvolved in CCDStack. Color combine in Photoshop. Finish work (curves and levels, increasing saturation, smart sharpen and selective Gaussian blurs on luminance layer) was done in Photoshop CS2.

Location: Data acquired remotely from the Tejas Observatory, located on the grounds of New Mexico Skies, near Mayhill, NM (elevation 7300 feet).

Date: Luminance images taken on the nights of October 29 and 30, 2008; color images taken on the night of October 31, 2008. Image posted November 2, 2008.

Image Scale: .5 arcseconds per pixel

CCD Chip Temperature: -20C

Seeing: Generally fair

Transparency: Generally good

Moon Phase: No moon during imaging

Copyright 2008 Mark de Regt