M 1

NGC 1952

The Crab Nebula

12-16-03  about 9:30pm

M1 (NGC1952), The Crab Nebula, about 6,300 light years from earth.   A supernova in 1054 A.D.  created the nebula.  The supernova was visible during the daylight for 23 days and during the night for almost two years.  Now it is at visual magnitude 8.4, 6 x 4 arc minutes.  At f/6.3 10 seconds, max gain, nearly max contrast, very high brightness, through Orion's Skyglow filter, dark frame subtracted.  67 frames stacked out of 100 shot.  Spotlights from the Las Vegas strip cross the field of view and wipe out those frames.  First use of FitsX background tool.  Don't know what I'm doing, but it looks good to me.