Despite of only 13 hours of data , it did turn out better than what I expected it and I am really please with the results, Anyway here is a great description for this location, Source: Wikipedia, Nasa, Astrojolo. Planetary nebulae have nothing to do with planets. The name of planetary nebulae arose in the 18th century because of the visual similarity between some round planetary nebulae and the planets Uranus and Neptune when viewed through small optical telescopes. The name has stuck even though modern telescopes make it obvious that these objects are not planets at all. When a star with a mass up to eight times that of the Sun runs out of fuel at the end of its life, it blows off its outer shells and begins to lose mass. This allows the hot, inner core of the star (collapsing from a red giant to a white dwarf) to radiate strongly, causing this outward-moving cocoon of gas to glow brightly. Planetary nebulae last for only about 10,000 years, a fleeting episode in the 10-billion-year lifespan of Sun-like stars. So, over the next several thousand years, SH2-188 will gradually disperse into space, and then the white dwarf will cool and fade away for billions of years. Our own Sun is expected to undergo a similar fate over about 5 billion years from now. Planetary nebulae do not always look like rings or blobs, and Sh2-188 is an example of that. It was photographed for the first time in 1965 and was initially thought to be a supernova remnant. However, the studies on the nebula composition revealed, that it is a planetary nebula – the abundance of nitrogen, oxygen, and carbon in the outer shell indicates that. When the medium-mass star ends its life, its core starts to compress due to gravity, and cooler outer layers expand and create the red giant star. During that phase, the star can lose up to 70% of its total mass from its stellar wind. When the core temperature reaches 100 million K, the available helium fuses into carbon and oxygen, and the core contraction stops for some time. The atmosphere gases continue to travel into interstellar space, and when the outer surface of the exposed core reaches about 30,000K, there is enough emitted ultraviolet light to ionize the ejected atmosphere, causing the gas to shine as a planetary nebula. The asymmetric shape of Sh2-188 is explained by the interaction of the rapidly moving planetary nebula with the interstellar medium. As a result, the bow shock is preserved in the direction of forward motion, but the back end of the planetary nebula dissipates in space. Sh2-188 is considered to be one of the most extreme examples of planetary nebula and interstellar medium interaction. The common names of this nebula are Dolphin or Shrimp. The diameter of the brightest arc is about 10 arc minutes, that is 1/3 of the apparent diameter of the Moon. But the nebula itself is quite faint, even its brightest part. And the weakest part at the back (with regards to the movement direction) is a challenge even for astrophotography. I captured the image above at my backyard observatory, under a suburban, light-polluted sky. Despite the significant exposures time and decent aperture, this weak part is almost invisible.
Telescope TS-Optics 300mm/12" f/8 Ritchey-Chrétien Astrograph (truss)
Camera ZWO ASI2600MC DUO
Mount iOptron CEM120
Filters Antlia Triband RGB Ultra Filter - 2.00'' Mounted, Player One Anti-Halo Pro Dual-Band Ha+OIII Filter 2"
Location: Matthews, NC
Date: November 2023