Saturday night was a good night at the River Ridge Observatory. Three CAAS members were in attendance. We all experienced technical difficulties but that happens sometimes.
My first object of the evening was the IC 405, or the Flaming Star Nebula. I used the Hyperstar adapter on my 11″ SCT Elf and a dual narrowband IDAS NBZ UHS filter (I have to think it through every time I type out the name) that lets Hydrogen Alpha and Oxygen III through and not much else. There was little OIII to let through in this object. It is believed that the proper motion of the central star (a little left of center here) can be traced back to the Orion Nebula.
Next and last, I shot NGC 2359 aka Thor’s Helmet in Canis Major. Like the Bubble Nebula and the Dolphin Head Nebula that I shot recently, this is a bubble being blown by a very hot Wolf-Rayet star which you can see inside the main part of the helmet. If you wonder how it came by it’s nickname, tilt your head to the right and you’ll say “oh yeah”. This nebula has plenty of OIII and the wings on the helmet show a little red from H-alpha. This image was shot after the Moon had risen but was more than 90 degrees away and turned out okay. This was just an hour’s worth of 3 minute subs and is a little small for the Hyperstar but I didn’t feel like swapping things out.
