Derby and District Astronomical Society

Caldwell 6 (NGC 6543)
The Cat's Eye Nebula

Planetary Nebula in Draco      RA 17h 58m 33s  Dec +66° 37m 59s


This image of NGC 6543 was captured by Peter Branson on the evening of September 29th 2021. The image was obtained by taking the best out of a series of separate runs of image-taking - 100x10s, 10x200s and 3x300s. The shorter exposures produced the best result for the central portion of the nebula. These images were captured using a ZWO ASI224MC-Cool camera, through a Hutech IDAS light pollution filter and attached to a Celestron C9.25 Schmitt-Cassegrain telescope. The telescope arrangement was mounted on an NEQ6 mount. The camera suffers from amp-glow and sufficient 'darks' were taken to compensate for the amp-glow introduced in each image. The images were combined and processed in Nebulosity. Peter says - "I'm trying to make a collection of as many planetary nebulae as possible. So far I've managed to capture over a dozen of the brightest ones but even some of these are quite faint. This view of NGC 6543 is of the central star and surrounding luminosity but there are even fainter glowing clouds much further out - hence the need for much longer exposures - which then tend to swamp the central section."  Image © Peter Branson.

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