NGC 6781

PLANETARY NEBULA IN AQUILA

(ra: 19,18.4 / dec 06:33)

October 2012, -  Camping La Porteña, Areco, Buenos Aires - Argentina

DATA

TYPE: Planetary Nebula

VISUAL BRIGHTNESS: 11.8

APPARENT DIAMETER: 1.9 arc seconds

DISTANCE: 2500 lights years

IMAGE INFORMATION

SCOPE: ORION OPTICS UK 6" f5 Newtonian

CAMERA: QSI 583 WS

GUIDING: LodeStar in Synta 70/400 refractor / PHD Guiding

FILTERS: Baader LRGB Set

SKY CONDITIONS: Rural Skies.

EXPOSURES: LRGB (30,20,20,20)

PROCESSING: Images Plus / Photoshop CS2

OBJECT DESCRIPTION AND IMAGE SESSION

NGC 6781 is a fine planetary nebula and a bright object. The Nebula presents a almost perfect bubble of gas emitted by a single sun like star that died some time ago. The nebula we see is the ejected surface of the star expanding into material left from an earlier stage. At 16.8 magnitude, the central star (a white dwarf) was is visible in the High Resolution Image.

I started imaging while the object was already into the west, therefore very short exposure time was used to get the complete LRGB set.