Heart, Soul and a very blue star!

Posted by R J Andersson at 18:42 on 2013 May 24

Hi folks,Thought I’d share: The Heart Nebula – IC1805 The Soul Nebula – LBN 667I was fortunate enough to have the second image selected as an "Astronomy Picture of the Day" (link) last month.Both images were captured using 5 x 200 second subs in each of R, G and B plus 8 x 1500 second subs in Ha with my TEC 140 ‘scope plus an FLI ML16803 camera. Processing is described in this thread over on the PI forum. 2048×2048 pixel versions are available for both images, here and here respectively.The Soul Nebula RGB subs contained a surprise:The star colours are pretty much what the RGB data indicated with no massive tweaks but that blue star is very blue indeed. Not the colour one might expect from a black body radiator. It took me a while to track it down but its designation is 2MASS J02574541+6034251 or Lan 272 for short. It’s a "UV Bright" white dwarf with an estimated surface temperature of 90,410° K (source). You can find it at 02 57 45.41, +60 34 25.2.Bob.