NGC 6058 Planetary Nebula in Hercules
Located in the constellation Hercules is the small glowing gas shell of planetary nebula NGC 6058. NGC 6058 is fairly dim, magnitude 12.9, quite small at 25 arc-sec across, and appears slilghtly elognated in the north-south direction. In the image, dark “ears” appear in the east-west direction. This is an ccd or processing artifact from the center 13.6 magnitude star. I normally remove such obvious artifacts around bright stars but I’m hesitant to do so in this case.
Image taken with Celestron Nexstar11 telescope, Meade F3.3 focal reducer, and Stellacam II video camera at 256 integration, 9/14 gain, and medium gamma. Images from 15 minute video were dark subtracted, flat field, and bias corrected. Registax3 was used to align and stack the images. ImagePlus used to enhance brightness (s-curve). Weather condition was clear, 57°F, no wind, transparency very good, turbulence 6/10, location Louisville, CO on June 2. 2006 06:37 to 06:52 UT.
June 3rd, 2006 at 2:55 pm
Maybe you could send some of those clear skies to NewEngland….?.
June 3rd, 2006 at 3:28 pm
Not sure amateur astronomers in this area would ever agree to that. It has been cloudy here on dark moon weekends, clear otherwise — or so it seems. Unfortunately, it has been very dry so we’ll probably soon have hazy skies from forest fires.
June 3rd, 2006 at 4:16 pm
We had a relatively dry winter but,mother nature has decided to make up for it with rain…and lots of it.Hey,I know what we can do.I will send you some rain to ease the fire danger and you can send me some clear skies.
Seems like a fair trade?!.