NGC 7635 – Bubble Nebula

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RGBcopy

BubbleNebulaInteriorHiColor

I created these Bubble Nebula (NGC7635) images from almost 30 hours of narrowband data, some of which was captured during bright moon nights. My narrowband filters consist of Sulfur II (SII – 672nm), Hydrogen-alpha (Ha – 656nm) and Oxygen III (OIII – 501nm). These filters help exclude light pollution (even the Moon), enhance structural contrast and can tell a lot about what is going on inside a complex nebula.  The Bubble Nebula (aka. Easter Egg Nebula) is a prototypical example of a Wolf-Rayet windblown nebula similar to Thor’s Helmut NGC2359. The superhot massive star in the Bubble is SAO20575 at magn. 8.7 (brightest star inside bubble). The blue (OIII) Bubble is embedded in a large orange-brown (H-alpha/SII) emission nebula Sh2-162. Notice that the color of that knot next to the Wolf-Rayet star in the Hubble palette image (“HubblePalette.jpg”) is orange-brown like the surrounding Sh2-162, not blue like the Bubble itself. Therefore, it is safe to say that the knot is foreground, is part of the emission nebula and this implies that the hot Bubble itself is wrapped within the cocoon emission cloud Sh2-162. I guess this is what “seeing something in a different light” is all about.