38 SKYNEWS•NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2019
PARTING SHOT by OLEG BOUEVITCH
CASSIOPEIA’S RADIANT
BUBBLE NEBULA
T
HE CONSTELLATION CASSIOPEIA the queen is home to the Bubble Nebula.
Also known by its catalogue designation NGC7635, this small, faint nebulosity
can be glimpsed in moderate-sized telescopes under dark sky conditions. But it’s
in long-exposure images that the Bubble really shines.
The Bubble Nebula is an interesting photographic target for both technical and
aesthetic reasons. In terms of aesthetics, I enjoy deep-space objects that look three-
dimensional—and the Bubble certainly qualifies. From a technical standpoint, I’d been
wondering how feasible it would be to capture something so tiny and delicate using com-
mercially produced equipment. My attempt was made with a Celestron EdgeHD 11-inch
Schmidt-Cassegrain telescope on a Losmandy G11 German equatorial mount. I recorded
a total of 40 hours exposure with an FLI ML16200 monochromatic CCD camera and
three narrowband filters. The fine detail in this Bubble portrait confirms that the equip-
ment is certainly up to the task. ✦Oleg Bouevitch images the sky from his backyard observatory in Nepean, Ontario. Several of
his exquisite astrophotos were featured in the May/June 2018 issue.