What happens when a star explodes? Well, you end up with something like this. The Jellyfish Nebula IC443 is thought to be the remains of a supernova explosion that occurred approximately 3000 to 30,000 years ago. Estimated to be about 5000 light-years from Earth, the Jellyfish is roughly 50 light-years wide.

The bright red halo on the right side of the photo is an internal reflection from the imaging system and is caused by the very bright star Propus, combined with the 10-minute exposures that were used to capture this object.

Captured November 7, 2010 at the Astronomical Society of Kansas City's Dark Sky Site near Butler, MO.

Technical details:

Orion 190mm Maksutov-Newtonian / QHY-8 Cooled CCD / CGE mount
9 x 600seconds, with bias and flat frames. Captured using Nebulosity, stacked in DeepSky stacker and processed in Photoshop CS4.