Thor’s Mighty Helmet

SHO-image of Thor's Helmet (NGC2359), acquired via 8 one click observation requests with the Planewave CDK24 telescope and FLI PL9000 camera in El Sauce Observatory, Chile (CHI-1).

Thor’s Helmet is an emission nebula in the constellation Canis Major, at about 12000 light-years from Earth. The name of this nebula stems from its striking resemblance to the helmet of the famed Norse God of thunder and lightning. Thor’s Helmet is composed of cosmic dust and gas: the predominant bluish hue is strong emission from doubly ionized oxygen atoms in the glowing gas. NGC 2359 spans roughly 30 light-years across and appears as an interstellar bubble that has been inflated by a central Wolf-Rayet star.

Total exposure 240 minutes. 6 subs of 300s and 2 subs of 600s with each narrowband filter (SII, H-alpha and OIII).

Processing with AstroPixelProcessor, Photoshop CC (incl. AstroPanel 4.2, Astronomy & Denoise Projects 3 plug-ins