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Alin Tolea | all galleries >> Galleries >> Astrophotography > M35, IC 443 (Abel 21) and Castor's left foot
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24-OCT-2012 Alin Tolea

M35, IC 443 (Abel 21) and Castor's left foot

Mountain Meadows, WV

Smack between Eta and Mu Geminorum, which make up Castor's left foot (as in Castor and Pollux in Gemini) we find a lot of deep sky objects.

M35 (and the smaller NGC 2158) are the two open clusters to the right of the frame. Such a lovely sight through any telescope!

IC443 is the jellyfish like red nebula on the top of the image. It's actually nicknamed Jellyfish nebula! It's a "planetary" nebula, just (mostly) atomic Hydrogen gas ejected and pushed around by the intense stellar winds of a star in a Red Giant phase. The star is long dead now, with it's superdense core left as a White Dwarf, hot and emitting a lot of UV light, which in turns makes the gas glow..

IC444 is the red diffuse glow center left in the image. There's a small reflection nebula smack in the middle there (the diffuse "star"), but it's late and I don't feel like looking up what it is.

There's a lot of brown dust permeating the bottom part of the image too.

Wanna see a better shot? Phillip Perkins of AstroCruise has a good LRGB version of this:
http://www.astrocruise.com/milky_way/ic443-444_0902.htm
I think I got the dust better than he did though! Well, at least till Rogelio tries this one (though I have a feeling he already did).

1h 18 minutes of exposure (8 subs) , Canon 5D MK III at ISO 1600, Borg 77 ED II + Borg 0.85x reducer. I love this little telescope. This is my final shot from the little October 2012 astrophoto expedition at Mountain Meadows, WV. Just lovely.

Canon EOS 5D Mark III
1h 18 minutes at ISO 1600 full exif

other sizes: small medium large auto
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