A chance find, discovered on the way to finding comet 46P. Telescope was unbalanced so guiding was poor. Very noisy image so no real details. Would like to do more with this.
| Object ID | NGC 1514 Crystal Ball Nebula, Taurus |
| Details | Mag 9.43 Size 2.2′ 2018-12-04 Poor transparency |
| Telescope | 250mm f4.8 Newtonian MPCC, IDAS P2 LPR |
| Camera | Atik 460EX Baader RGB filters |
| Exposure(s) | 5x60s 2×2 each RGB Darks |
| Capture | APT Guiding PHD2 |
| Processing | Nebulosity, Photoshop |
NGC 1514 is a planetary nebula that was discovered by William Herschel on November 13, 1790, describing it “A most singular phaenomenon” and forcing him to rethink his ideas on the construction of the heavens. Up until this point Herschel was convinced that all nebulae consisted of masses of stars too remote to resolve, but now here was a single star “surrounded with a faintly luminous atmosphere.” He went on to conclude “Our judgement I may venture to say, will be, that the nebulosity about the star is not of a starry nature”.
It has since been conjectured that the nebula in fact envelops a tightly orbiting double star with a period of up to 10 days. Gas is presumably expanding away from the larger star of the pair.
Wikipedia