NGC7662: NGC7662, also known as the Blue Snowball Nebula, is a small (about 2.2 arcminutes in diameter, including the very faint halo around the bright part of the nebula), bright (magnitude 9) planetary nebula, the type of nebula which it is generally thought our Sun will produce as nuclear fusion slows and then dies in its core, and it expels its outer layers of gas. Estimates of its distance from Earth vary, but tend to be around 4000 light years.

Technical Information:

LRGB: 60:50:50:60 (Luminance consisted of four minute images; RGB consisted of ten minute images, all unbinned).

Equipment: 10" LX200 at f/12, an SBIG ST-7E camera/CFW-8 color filter wheel, guided by an SBIG AO-7 adaptive optics device, guiding at 37 Hz (luminance) and 11 Hz (RGB).

Image Acquisition/Camera Control: CCDSoft V5.

Processing: All images calibrated (darks, dawn (fog) flats and flat-darks) and registered in AIP4WIN. All layers average combined in CCDSoft. Five iterations of Lucy-Richardson deconvolution routine applied using CCDSharp. Color combine, very gentle unsharp mask on the luminance layer, and adjustment of curves and levels, performed in Photoshop 6.0.

Location: All images taken in my yard in Redmond, WA, USA, elevation 500'.

Date: All images taken on the night of September 26, 2002.

CCD Temperature: -18C

Moon Phase: Waning Gibbous

Seeing: 1.9 Arcsecond FWHM

Copyright 2002 Mark de Regt