RCW 58, the Cosmic Flower

RCW 58, also known as the Cosmic Flower, is a Wolf-Rayet Bubble in the constellation Carina. It is only visible in the southern hemisphere. The Wolf-Rayet star is located at the center of the bubble.

Wolf–Rayet stars are massive stars which are at an advanced stage of stellar evolution and are losing mass at a very high rate. With masses typically greater than 25 times that of the Sun, they have brief lifetimes and are therefore quite rare objects. Wolf–Rayet stars are evolved, massive stars that have completely lost their outer hydrogen and are fusing helium or heavier elements in their core. Their spectra indicate very high surface concentration of heavy elements, depletion of hydrogen, and strong stellar winds. (SAO)

This star is supermassive, super-energetic, and surrounded by an impressive Wolf-Rayet Nebula. WR stars very rapidly convert their hydrogen into helium, in millions of years as opposed to billions like the Sun. These super giants eject a lot of their mass, mainly the outer shells containing mostly hydrogen, forming a “Wolf-Rayet Nebula”. The bubble and red nebulosity in the image above is ionized hydrogen from the Wolf-Rayet Nebula. (Telescope Live)

Image processed by Andrew F. Macica, original data from Telescope Live.

Imaging Details:

Observatory: Rio Hurtado Valley, Chile

Telescope: Planewave CDK24

Aperture: 610 mm (24 inches), f/6.5

Focal Length: 3962 mm

Camera: QHY 600M Pro CMOS

Filters: LRGB, Ha

Total Exposure: 6 hours 51 min.

Image Processing: PixInsight 1.8.9-3 Ripley (x64);

BlurXTerminator, NoiseXTerminator, StarXTerminator (RC Astro);

Adobe Photoshop 25.12.4;

Adobe Lightroom Classic 15.1.1

Instruction on PixInsight from Adam Block Studios.