Anthony Ayiomamitis was trying to image this stunning supernova remnant in Cygnus, CTB 80, which the Hubble Space Telescope captured in 1997. NASA and The Hubble Heritage Team (STScI/AURA)
Michael,
I am already set up outside to image CTB 80 — a stunning supernova remnant in Cygnus. This object is excruciatingly dim and will easily require 20+ hours of total exposure time using my Takahashi FSQ refractor and my SBIG ST-10XME CCD camera.
If everything works according to plan with CTB 80, I will be submitting it for Astronomy’s imaging contest as well. I plan to go after it as a hybrid (Hydrogen-alpha/Sulfur-II/Oxygen-III/RGB) with at least three to four full nights dedicated to it exclusively. CTB 80 is a supernova remnant with emissions in the optical, X-ray, and radio parts of the spectrum. It measures about 80 arcminutes across.
— Anthony
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Michael,
Further to my comment about CTB 80, get ready for a laugh!
I easily spent about 20 hours imaging this supernova remnant the past week and without the slightest trace or hint of success. I found this odd because I have one of the most sensitive cameras available to an imager and certainly one of the fastest and best astrographs around.
I finally decided to contact my friend Lisa Frattare at the Hubble Heritage Project. I mentioned to her that I could not register the actual HST images involving CTB 80 to mine in my fruitless attempts to locate the remnant.
Lisa replied back that this supernova remnant is 80 arcseconds and not 80 arcminutes in diameter. In other words, my original source was off by a factor of 60x thanks to a typo where arcminutes were specified in lieu of arcseconds.
Aside from the 20+ hours of imaging time, I easily spent the same amount of time analyzing and processing my images from the various all-nighters in trying to locate CTB 80.
Don't trust anything or anyone.
— Anthony
Well, Anthony, take heart. You’ve sent in many terrific images we’ve published in the magazine and on Astronomy.com. And although this one didn’t work out, it sure made a great story!