by Craig and Tammy Temple
Since the weather here is being less than cooperative for us to gather all the narrowband data on the Jellyfish, we thought we would share our H-alpha image with you. We have captured some of the SII but still need 5 or 6 more subs. We still need to capture OIII data so hopefully the skies will clear enough during this upcoming new moon phase for us to finish this object in Hubble palette.
The Jellyfish Nebula, also known as IC 443 and Sharpless 248 (Sh 2-248), is a galactic supernova remnant (SNR) that lies roughly 5,000 light years from Earth in the constellation Gemini. While this remnant's age is still uncertain, some agree that the progenitor supernova happened between 3,000 and 30,000 years ago. As compared to our full moon at 30 arcmin across, IC 443 has an angular diameter of 50 arcmin. That, combined with its estimated distance from Earth, corresponds to a physical size of roughly 70 light years.
Telescope: Stellarvue Raptor SVR105 @ f/7
Accessories: Stellarvue SFF7-21 flattener; Dew control by Dew Buster; Alnitak Flat-Man
Mount: Takahashi EM-200 Temma2
Camera: QSI583wsg CCD @ -25.0C
Guiding: Starlight Xpress Lodestar via PHD
Filters: Astrodon 5nm Ha
Exposure: 18 x 20min.
Acquisition: ImagesPlus 4.3 Camera Control
Processing: Calibration, DDP in Images Plus v4.5; Registration in Registar
Post-processing: ImagesPlus 4.5; Adobe Photoshop CS5
Date(s): January 5, 2012
Temperature (begin - end): 45.3ºF - 31.6ºF
Moon data: Waxing Gibbous - 90%
Location: Hendersonville, TN, USA