ASTRO: NGC 136 and a big surprise

When nothing pressing is within my imaging window which stretches no
more than 1 or two hours either side of the meridian I will pick up a
Herschel 400 (either the original or second list) object. The night of
January 5th UT didn't look promising so I went for the rather meager
original Herschel 400 object, the open star cluster NGC 136 in
Cassiopeia, about 17,000 light-years according to WEBDA. That explains
its small size. My visual notes from July 11, 1985 with my 10" f/5
reads: "SMALL BALL OF 15-20 STARS INSIDE A 10' CLOUD OF STARS." I don't
really see that star cloud but the star count seems reasonable from my
image.

But I got quite a surprise when I processed this image. Processed
normally for a star cluster I saw a "glitch" in my flat. Apparently a
dust mot was on the flat that wasn't on the camera. It was small so
made a faint bright ring below an orange star. That was my initial
take. I was about to process it out when I saw it wasn't quite round.
Could it be real? I checked an image taken later that same night under
worse conditions with no hint of a bright ring after flat calibration
nor did the flat show a dust mot in that spot. So what the heck was it?
A check of the blue POSS II plate showed a hint of the same feature.
I'd just read a technique for bringing out galaxy plumes that was quick
and dirty invented by Adam Block. Since it takes only seconds to try I
put it to use and out popped an irregular ring. It was noisy as I'm
working severely underexposed for such a faint feature. Still it looked
like it could be a faint planetary nebula. A quick plate solve and
check of SIMBAD showed that's what it was. It was discovered in 2012 by
the French amateur astronomer Nicolas Outters when taking a deep shot in
narrow band of nearby Sh2-173. I was two years late in taking the image!
It is Ou2. He's discovered 4 such objects now. Not all are certain
planetary nebulae however. See:
http://www.astroscu.unam.mx/rmaa/RMx...8-2_aacker.pdf
for the initial announcement of Ou1 through 4 and two others found by
other amateurs. If you read French or use a translation program
Outters' website is at: http://www.outters.fr/ .

I processed this image expecting it to be quick and easy with little
research needed for such an open cluster. Ou2 changed that! Took me
several hours to track down the information on it. The central star is
thought to be the sort of bright blue star a bit to the upper right of
the dark core and below a rather bright blue star in the inner edge of
the upper part of the ring. It shows faintly in the NB image in the PDF
link above. Those out there taking many hour exposures in narrow band
can likely show it a lot better than my 40 minutes of luminance data does.

So how many have imaged this cluster and either missed seeing or
processed out the planetary that could have had their name on it?

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

Rick
--
Prefix is correct. Domain is arvig dot net

Right text, wrong images. Here's the right ones.

Originally Posted by Rick Johnson[_2_]

When nothing pressing is within my imaging window which stretches no
more than 1 or two hours either side of the meridian I will pick up a
Herschel 400 (either the original or second list) object. The night of
January 5th UT didn't look promising so I went for the rather meager
original Herschel 400 object, the open star cluster NGC 136 in
Cassiopeia, about 17,000 light-years according to WEBDA. That explains
its small size. My visual notes from July 11, 1985 with my 10" f/5
reads: "SMALL BALL OF 15-20 STARS INSIDE A 10' CLOUD OF STARS." I don't
really see that star cloud but the star count seems reasonable from my
image.

But I got quite a surprise when I processed this image. Processed
normally for a star cluster I saw a "glitch" in my flat. Apparently a
dust mot was on the flat that wasn't on the camera. It was small so
made a faint bright ring below an orange star. That was my initial
take. I was about to process it out when I saw it wasn't quite round.
Could it be real? I checked an image taken later that same night under
worse conditions with no hint of a bright ring after flat calibration
nor did the flat show a dust mot in that spot. So what the heck was it?
A check of the blue POSS II plate showed a hint of the same feature.
I'd just read a technique for bringing out galaxy plumes that was quick
and dirty invented by Adam Block. Since it takes only seconds to try I
put it to use and out popped an irregular ring. It was noisy as I'm
working severely underexposed for such a faint feature. Still it looked
like it could be a faint planetary nebula. A quick plate solve and
check of SIMBAD showed that's what it was. It was discovered in 2012 by
the French amateur astronomer Nicolas Outters when taking a deep shot in
narrow band of nearby Sh2-173. I was two years late in taking the image!
It is Ou2. He's discovered 4 such objects now. Not all are certain
planetary nebulae however. See:
http://www.astroscu.unam.mx/rmaa/RMx...8-2_aacker.pdf
for the initial announcement of Ou1 through 4 and two others found by
other amateurs. If you read French or use a translation program
Outters' website is at: http://www.outters.fr/ .

I processed this image expecting it to be quick and easy with little
research needed for such an open cluster. Ou2 changed that! Took me
several hours to track down the information on it. The central star is
thought to be the sort of bright blue star a bit to the upper right of
the dark core and below a rather bright blue star in the inner edge of
the upper part of the ring. It shows faintly in the NB image in the PDF
link above. Those out there taking many hour exposures in narrow band
can likely show it a lot better than my 40 minutes of luminance data does.

So how many have imaged this cluster and either missed seeing or
processed out the planetary that could have had their name on it?

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

Rick
--
Prefix is correct. Domain is arvig dot net

Rick,

you managed to show the PN quite obviously. Great shot.

Stefan


"WA0CKY" schrieb im Newsbeitrag ...


Right text, wrong images. Here's the right ones.

'Rick Johnson[_2_ Wrote:
;1271328']When nothing pressing is within my imaging window which
stretches no
more than 1 or two hours either side of the meridian I will pick up a
Herschel 400 (either the original or second list) object. The night of

January 5th UT didn't look promising so I went for the rather meager
original Herschel 400 object, the open star cluster NGC 136 in
Cassiopeia, about 17,000 light-years according to WEBDA. That explains

its small size. My visual notes from July 11, 1985 with my 10" f/5
reads: "SMALL BALL OF 15-20 STARS INSIDE A 10' CLOUD OF STARS." I don't

really see that star cloud but the star count seems reasonable from my
image.

But I got quite a surprise when I processed this image. Processed
normally for a star cluster I saw a "glitch" in my flat. Apparently a
dust mot was on the flat that wasn't on the camera. It was small so
made a faint bright ring below an orange star. That was my initial
take. I was about to process it out when I saw it wasn't quite round.
Could it be real? I checked an image taken later that same night under

worse conditions with no hint of a bright ring after flat calibration
nor did the flat show a dust mot in that spot. So what the heck was it?

A check of the blue POSS II plate showed a hint of the same feature.
I'd just read a technique for bringing out galaxy plumes that was quick

and dirty invented by Adam Block. Since it takes only seconds to try I

put it to use and out popped an irregular ring. It was noisy as I'm
working severely underexposed for such a faint feature. Still it looked

like it could be a faint planetary nebula. A quick plate solve and
check of SIMBAD showed that's what it was. It was discovered in 2012 by

the French amateur astronomer Nicolas Outters when taking a deep shot in

narrow band of nearby Sh2-173. I was two years late in taking the image!

It is Ou2. He's discovered 4 such objects now. Not all are certain
planetary nebulae however. See:
http://tinyurl.com/pvusx8o
for the initial announcement of Ou1 through 4 and two others found by
other amateurs. If you read French or use a translation program
Outters' website is at: http://www.outters.fr/ .

I processed this image expecting it to be quick and easy with little
research needed for such an open cluster. Ou2 changed that! Took me
several hours to track down the information on it. The central star is

thought to be the sort of bright blue star a bit to the upper right of
the dark core and below a rather bright blue star in the inner edge of
the upper part of the ring. It shows faintly in the NB image in the PDF

link above. Those out there taking many hour exposures in narrow band
can likely show it a lot better than my 40 minutes of luminance data
does.

So how many have imaged this cluster and either missed seeing or
processed out the planetary that could have had their name on it?

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

Rick
--
Prefix is correct. Domain is arvig dot net


--
WA0CKY