NGC 2392 "Eskimo Nebula" in Gemini

Scope: C8 at  f/10 Location: Del MAr, CA;   8  Feb. 2005; Camera: ToUcam SC3

Exposure: 18 x 8 sec and 18 x 24 sec exposures with IR  block filter 12 x 24 sec each RGB exposures.

Processing: Images were captured in K3CCDTools 2. Aligned/stacked in Registax 3 and saved as FITS. Luminance and Color channels were scaled and rough color balanced in IRIS. Channels were co-registered in IRIS. The 24  sec  exposure was used as the base Luminance channel. The shorter Luminance exposure was used to provide more detail in the saturated core of the nebula in the longer exposure.  Luminance and Color FITS were combined in Photoshop with Luminance Layering. The blue channel seemed to overpower some of the red detail in the image so I  reduced the blue channel in the nebula region to brig out more detail. Color balancing and final touches in Photoshop. SGBNR (PixInsight LE) was used to smooth background noise on  the luminance channel and the final result. Resized to approximately 800 x 600.

This image was guided. The Eskimo Nebula is a planetary nebula. It gets it's common name from it's face like appearance surranded by fur. Here in this image with North up, the "head is upside down. It is cataloged in the New General Catalog as NGC 2392. Planetary nebula are formed when a central star ejects mass and then excites that expanding gas front. Planetary nebula are rather short lived compared to stellar life spans - they remain visible for only 10's of thousands of years. Horizontal FOV is 8'

All images and content remain the property of Jim Thommes - copyright 2003 - 2012

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