By Mario Rana | 2026-08-17
The Bubble Nebula and other stuff
On 08/15/2026 11:55 pm by Steven Bellavia | Website | Parksville, NY
The Bubble nebula, Caldwell 11, NGC 7635,Sharpless 162, is an H-II region, emission nebula, in the constellation Cassiopeia. The "bubble" is created by the stellar wind from a massive hot, 8.7 magnitude young central star, SAO 20575, BD+60 2522. (there seems to be some debate as to whether this is a Wolf-Rayet star or not). The nebula is near a giant molecular cloud which contains the expansion of the bubble nebula, while itself being excited by the hot central star, causing it to glow. It was discovered in 1787 by William Herschel.
Also in the image is M52, the salt and pepper cluster (upper left), NGC 7538, The northern lagoon nebula (upper right), and a piece of SH2-157, the Lobster claw nebula (lower right)
William Optics FLT-91 triplet apo refractor with 1.0X flattener
ZWO ASI 294MM camera
SkyWatcher EQ6R-Pro equatorial mount
Antlia Edge 4.5nm Ha, OIII and SII filters
Integration (350 minutes, 5.8 hours total):
- Antlia 4.5nm H-alpha, 26 x 5-minutes
- Antlia 4.5nm Oxygen III, 23 x 5-minutes
- Antlia 4.5nm Sulfur II, 21 x 5-minutes
along with 30 darks, 24 flats and 25 dark-flats for each set.
Used PixInsight for alignment, integration and post processing, as well as Canon Digital Photo Professional