Digital Image – The Jellyfish Nebula

Here is a HSO narrowband image of IC 443, the Jellyfish Nebula.

IC 443 (also known as the Jellyfish Nebula and Sharpless 248 (Sh2-248)) is a galactic supernova remnant (SNR) in the constellation of Gemini. It is located near the bright star Propus (Eta Geminorum; the 3rd magnitude star in the bottom of the image). Its distance is roughly 5,000 light years from Earth.

IC 443 may be the remains of a supernova that occurred 3,000 – 30,000 years ago. The same supernova event likely created a neutron star, the collapsed remnant of the stellar core. IC 443 is one of the best-studied cases of supernova remnants interacting with surrounding molecular clouds.

Click on the image for a larger version. There is a lot of detail in this ~5 hour image – the object was bright in Hydrogen Alpha and Sulfur II.

Image Info

  • Imaged from the KPO field in Saint Cloud, Florida.
  • Camera : ZWO ASI1600MM Pro
  • Lens: Canon 100-400 f/5.6L lens, set to 400mm
  • Mount: iOptron SmartEQ Pro
  • Hydrogen Alpha: 23 subframes of 300s = 115 min integration, assigned to Red
  • Oxygen III: 21 subframes of 300s = 105 min integration, assigned to Blue
  • Sulphur II: 14 subframes of 300s = 70 min integration, assigned to Green
  • Total integration time: 260 min = 4.8 hours.
  • Captured via ASIAir Pro automation
  • Optical tracking via ASIAir automation, currently using ST4 mount control via the ASI120MM-S guide camera
  • Separate channels stacked and HSO integrated in Astro Pixel Processor
  • Final processing in Aperture

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