Thor’s Helmet is an emission nebula located in the constellation Canis Major. The nebula is approximately 11,960 light-years away and is powered by a central Wolf-Rayet star (HD 56925), which you can see clearly in the center of the blue “bubble.” The WR star is 280,000x brighter than our own sun, and the stellar winds coming from it are blowing outward at ~1500 km/s. That’s over .5% of the speed of light, and 10 times faster than the Parker Solar Probe, the fastest manmade object.
This image is a blend of SHO (Sulfur, Hydrogen, Oxygen) and broadband RGB data. The goal was to resolve the intricate filamentary structures of the helmet and outer nebulosity while preserving natural hue and of course the actual star colors.
**Processing:**
* Combined SHO and RGB integration.
* Narrowband Normalization applied to the SHO channels.
* SXT to get the RGB star plate
* Final blending performed in Affinity Photo using layer composition (Hue/Average) to merge the narrowband nebulosity with RGB hue and tone gradients.
* Putting it all together and cropping.
2 Comments
Thor’s Helmet is an emission nebula located in the constellation Canis Major. The nebula is approximately 11,960 light-years away and is powered by a central Wolf-Rayet star (HD 56925), which you can see clearly in the center of the blue “bubble.” The WR star is 280,000x brighter than our own sun, and the stellar winds coming from it are blowing outward at ~1500 km/s. That’s over .5% of the speed of light, and 10 times faster than the Parker Solar Probe, the fastest manmade object.
This image is a blend of SHO (Sulfur, Hydrogen, Oxygen) and broadband RGB data. The goal was to resolve the intricate filamentary structures of the helmet and outer nebulosity while preserving natural hue and of course the actual star colors.
**Processing:**
* Combined SHO and RGB integration.
* Narrowband Normalization applied to the SHO channels.
* SXT to get the RGB star plate
* Final blending performed in Affinity Photo using layer composition (Hue/Average) to merge the narrowband nebulosity with RGB hue and tone gradients.
* Putting it all together and cropping.
|R|140×60″|2h 20′|
|:-|:-|:-|
|G|139×60″|2h 19′|
|B|136×60″|2h 16′|
|Hα|64×600″|10h 40′|
|SII|82×600″|13h 40′|
|OIII|64×600″|10h 40′|
|Totals||41h 55′|
Telescope: SVX180T
Camera: ASI6200MM
Mount: 10Micron GM2000
That is next level good! Wonderful work.