Messier 1 - The Crab Nebula (aka NGC 1952)is a supernova remnant that was created from the explosion of a massive star on July 4, 1054.
The blast was so unimaginably powerful that the light generated by it was visible to the naked eye, DURING DAYLIGHT, for 23 days and continued
to be visible at night for 653 days. It was recorded by Chinese astronomers who called it the "guest star" because it came into view and subsequently
was lost to view. Also, some people today consider it the basis for two Anasazi Indian petroglyphs found in the southwest U.S.

The progenitor star was about 4,000 light years from us and, even at that distance, the light was extremely strong. Had the star been located
within 50 light years of us every living thing on earth would have been destroyed. Once the strong light had faded, the supernova remnant we see today
was not seen again until the mid-eighteenth century when telescope technology had developed enough to see the nebula.

What we see today is the continued expansion of the gas and dust created by the star debris and it is growing at about 900 miles per second and is currently
about 11 light years in width. It can be seen in the constellation Taurus.

Click on "Original" below to see the largest available size.

Dates:
November 17 and 18, 2009
Location:
Ft. Griffin State Historic Site, Texas
Telescope:
Astro-Tech 6" Ritchey-Chretien at f/9 1370mm focal length
Mount:
Takahashi EM-11 Temma 2, guided by the ST-10XE internal guide chip
Camera:
SBIG ST-10XE at prime focus with CFW8 and Astronomik LRGB filters
Camera Control:
CCDSoft
Exposures:
Luminance - 21 exposures at 10 mins each; binned 1x1
Red - 7 exposures at 8 mins each; binned 2x2
Green - 7 exposures at 8 mins each; binned 2x2
Blue - 7 exposures at 8 mins each; binned 2x2
Total Exposure time:
6 hours 20 minutes
Processing:
LRGB channels processed in CCDStack (luminance nebula deconvolved at 250 iterations)
LRGB combine and final processing in Photoshop CS2