Hidden in plain site: HoCr1

On the nights of February 2, 4 and 11, 2006 Australian amateur astronomer Michael Howell took a narrow band image of the Jellyfish super nova remnant and SH2-249 as many amateurs before him had. But a small object in his wide field caught his eye. Was it real? Amateur Richard Crisp was called in to see if he saw it. He did. But it wasn't in any catalog. It turns out it is a rather bright and large planetary nebula no one noticed despite it being imaged a zillion times by professionals and amateurs. Or if they did notice it they just ignored it. Fortunately Mr. Howell investigated and now the planetary is known as HoCr1. So how many amateurs had a chance to have this rather obvious planetary nebula named for them and lost out as they only paid attention to the object they were imaging, IC 433? An APOD image from May 15, 2010 of the area shows it but never mentions it is in the image. This was 7 months after its discovery was announced.

I was surprised to find it still isn't listed in Simbad. You can read Mr. Howells story and see his discovery images as well as professional ones at http://www.horizontalheavens.com/pla...ulaproject.htm . That link leads to the paper about it and many other newly confirmed planetary nebulae.

It seems all images of it I find are narrow band or if RGB are so low scale not much can be seen in it. None show its central star. What looks like a central star in the narrow band images is the bright star that happens to lie at its core. But my LRGB image shows it as somewhat red so not the true central star. Look just below it and peeking out from its glare is a very blue star. I assume it is the true central star.

Faint H alpha emission from Sharpless 249 lies across my image but with my short exposure time in broadband it isn't very obvious but for a brighter patch with a dark hole along the bottom left of my image.

14" LX200R @ f/10, L=4x10' RGB=2x10', STL-11000XM, Paramount ME

Rick

I see I grabbed the 0.8" crop rather than the 0.67" crop I intended. Most of the time seeing is such 0.8" is about the best as going higher is mostly showing off the poor seeing. This was an exception. Being in the rut of 0.8" crops I didn't even look at the 0.67" version I made. I should have as it makes seeing the likely true central star somewhat easier.

Rick

Originally Posted by WA0CKY

On the nights of February 2, 4 and 11, 2006 Australian amateur astronomer Michael Howell took a narrow band image of the Jellyfish super nova remnant and SH2-249 as many amateurs before him had. But a small object in his wide field caught his eye. Was it real? Amateur Richard Crisp was called in to see if he saw it. He did. But it wasn't in any catalog. It turns out it is a rather bright and large planetary nebula no one noticed despite it being imaged a zillion times by professionals and amateurs. Or if they did notice it they just ignored it. Fortunately Mr. Howell investigated and now the planetary is known as HoCr1. So how many amateurs had a chance to have this rather obvious planetary nebula named for them and lost out as they only paid attention to the object they were imaging, IC 433? An APOD image from May 15, 2010 of the area shows it but never mentions it is in the image. This was 7 months after its discovery was announced.

I was surprised to find it still isn't listed in Simbad. You can read Mr. Howells story and see his discovery images as well as professional ones at http://www.horizontalheavens.com/pla...ulaproject.htm . That link leads to the paper about it and many other newly confirmed planetary nebulae.

It seems all images of it I find are narrow band or if RGB are so low scale not much can be seen in it. None show its central star. What looks like a central star in the narrow band images is the bright star that happens to lie at its core. But my LRGB image shows it as somewhat red so not the true central star. Look just below it and peeking out from its glare is a very blue star. I assume it is the true central star.

Faint H alpha emission from Sharpless 249 lies across my image but with my short exposure time in broadband it isn't very obvious but for a brighter patch with a dark hole along the bottom left of my image.

14" LX200R @ f/10, L=4x10' RGB=2x10', STL-11000XM, Paramount ME

Rick

Mighty image Rick.

I know I have noticed this nebula in one of my images, but when researching
it I thought that I found it to be a know object. Can't remember any details
now, I think that was in 2009.
I always wanted to do a long focal length version but never got around to
actually doing one. Maybe this year?

Stefan


"WA0CKY" schrieb im Newsbeitrag ...


I see I grabbed the 0.8" crop rather than the 0.67" crop I intended.
Most of the time seeing is such 0.8" is about the best as going higher
is mostly showing off the poor seeing. This was an exception. Being in
the rut of 0.8" crops I didn't even look at the 0.67" version I made. I
should have as it makes seeing the likely true central star somewhat
easier.

Rick

WA0CKY;1277957 Wrote:
On the nights of February 2, 4 and 11, 2006 Australian amateur
astronomer Michael Howell took a narrow band image of the Jellyfish
super nova remnant and SH2-249 as many amateurs before him had. But a
small object in his wide field caught his eye. Was it real? Amateur
Richard Crisp was called in to see if he saw it. He did. But it wasn't
in any catalog. It turns out it is a rather bright and large planetary
nebula no one noticed despite it being imaged a zillion times by
professionals and amateurs. Or if they did notice it they just ignored
it. Fortunately Mr. Howell investigated and now the planetary is known
as HoCr1. So how many amateurs had a chance to have this rather obvious
planetary nebula named for them and lost out as they only paid attention
to the object they were imaging, IC 433? An APOD image from May 15,
2010 of the area shows it but never mentions it is in the image. This
was 7 months after its discovery was announced.

I was surprised to find it still isn't listed in Simbad. You can read
Mr. Howells story and see his discovery images as well as professional
ones at http://www.horizontalheavens.com/pla...ulaproject.htm .
That link leads to the paper about it and many other newly confirmed
planetary nebulae.

It seems all images of it I find are narrow band or if RGB are so low
scale not much can be seen in it. None show its central star. What
looks like a central star in the narrow band images is the bright star
that happens to lie at its core. But my LRGB image shows it as somewhat
red so not the true central star. Look just below it and peeking out
from its glare is a very blue star. I assume it is the true central
star.

Faint H alpha emission from Sharpless 249 lies across my image but with
my short exposure time in broadband it isn't very obvious but for a
brighter patch with a dark hole along the bottom left of my image.

14" LX200R @ f/10, L=4x10' RGB=2x10', STL-11000XM, Paramount ME

Rick


--
WA0CKY