M1 - The Crab Nebula
M1 - The most famous and conspicuous supernova remnant. The Crab Nebula is the centuries-old wreckage of a stellar explosion, or supernova, first noted by Chinese astronomers on July 4, 1054, and that reached a peak magnitude of -6 (about four times brighter than Venus). According to the Chinese records, it was visible in daylight for 23 days and in the night sky to the unaided eye for 653 days.
The Crab Nebula lies about 6,300 light-years away in the constellation Taurus, measures roughly 10 light-years across, and is expanding at an average speed of 1,800 km/s (some 0.2 arcsecond per year). Surprisingly, its expansion rate seems to be accelerating, driven by radiation from the central pulsar.
This image was taken on 9 March 2011 through a 9.25” Celestron SCT using a modified Canon 40D camera with a CLS light pollution filter. The exposure was 30 x 5 minutes, = total exposure time of 2 hours and 30 minutes at ISO 800. The sub exposures were stacked in Deep Sky Stacker and processed in Photoshop CS2.
