NGC 6543

The Cat's Eye Nebula or NGC 6543, is a relatively bright planetary nebula in the northern constellation of Draco, discovered by William Herschel on February 15, 1786. It was the first planetary nebula whose spectrum was investigated by the English amateur astronomer William Huggins, demonstrating that planetary nebulae were gaseous and not stellar in nature.

NGC 6543 is a high northern declination deep-sky object. It has the combined magnitude of 8.1, with high surface brightness. Its small bright inner nebula subtends an average of 16.1 arcsec, with the outer prominent condensations about 25 arcsec. Deep images reveal an extended halo about 300 arcsec or 5 arcmin across, that was once ejected by the central progenitor star during its red giant phase.

L = 20 * 1800 sec. bin1, RGB = 12 * 900 sec. bin2, Ha = 13 * 1800 sec. bin1, OIII = 12 * 1800 sec. bin1

Total - 31.5 hours.

Pixinsight 1.8, Photoshop.

july-august 2018, march-april 2019