Abell 31 is an extremely faint and ancient planetary nebula in Cancer. It is around 20 lightyears in diameter and 2000 lightyears distant. It is the remains of a sun-like star, that started shedding its outer layers perhaps 130,000 years ago. Our own sun will have a similar fate in around 5 billion years.
This image is the result of 18h of narrowband data capture, through Hydrogen-alpha and Oxygen-III filters. This took place over 11 evenings during January to May 2023, so something of a record for me, in both duration and total data capture time. Because of its faintness, it was only discovered in 1955.
In this HOO image, hydrogen has been mapped to red and oxygen to both green and blue. A ZWO ASI2600MM Pro monochrome camera was used, through an 8-inch Teleskop-Service Ritchey-Chretien Cassegrain reflector, from Horsham.
Date: 02/05/2023
Location: Horsham, West Sussex
Photographer: Graham Wilcock
