M52 - Salt-and-Pepper Cluster & NGC 7635 - The Bubble Nebula

            This is a photograph taken with a small refractor telescope and a DSLR of two Deep-Sky objects located in the Northern Hemisphere constellation of Cassiopeia, the Queen. Although they look like being close to each other, they are located far apart from each other, both of course belonging to our Milky Way Galaxy collection of stars and nebulae. 
The object at center is M52 (Messier 52, NGC 7654), an open star cluster of about 200 stars at an estimated distance of about 4,000 to 5,000 light years. It was discovered by Charles Messier on 1774. These stars were born from the same interstellar nebula of gas and dust about 35 million years ago, so this is a young star cluster by astronomy standards. This object, visible with a small telescope or even binoculars under clear, dark skies is sometimes called the Salt-and-Pepper cluster.
To the right of M52 we can see the Bubble nebula (NGC 7635), which was discovered by W. Herschel in 1787. This object is located further away from M52, at an estimated distance of about 11,000 light years. The Bubble Nebula is a strange planetary nebula, formed from a fast stellar wind of a hot, young, massive star located inside the nebula. As the wind comes off the star, it pushes the surrounding gas to form a giant sphere that is surrounded by a molecular cloud. The high-energy ultraviolet light from the star ionizes the gas atoms, causing them to glow. The star that illuminates the Bubble is some 25 to 40 times as massive as our Sun and thousands of times brighter. This Wolf-Rayet star will probably end up exploding as a supernova. 
The Bubble nebula is much dimmer than M52 and requires a large telescope to be seen. Finally, at the upper right we can see a smaller nebula, which is catalogued as NGC 7538, at about 9,000 light years, a region of active star formation containing a protostars with a mass of about 300 solar masses. 
I photographed these two objects back in 2017 but this time I managed to collect about 1,5 hours of data with the use of a CLS light pollution filter, so hopefully a better result was obtained.
Thanks to everyone for viewing - clear skies!

Details:
Telescope: Orion EON 80ED
Camera: Canon EOS 20Da 
Mount: Vixen Sphinx (NexSXW)
Filter: Astronomik CLS
Guiding: 80/400 Skywatcher refractor - SkyWatcher SynGuider
Light frames: 20 x 5 mins (total: 100 mins), ISO 3200, Custom WB, calibrated with darks
Date: 26 October 2019 
Processing: DSS 4.2.3, Adobe Photoshop 2020 with Astronomy Tools Actions set (spikes added to the brightest stars).

   

Taken on: October 26, 2019

Tags:

EOS_20Da

ED80

DSS

Deep_Sky

Bubble

2019

CLS

M52

Salt & Pepper

NGC_7635 « less

Sets appears in: • Deep Sky Astrophotography

Groups appears in: • Astrophotography - Astronomy - Astrophysics • Astronomy more » • Canon 20D • astrometry • Deep Sky Stacker • Amateur Astro-Photography • Astrophotography - The Solar System and Beyond • DSLR Astrophotography • The Art of Astrophotography • Astro Imaging « less

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