Observation by Richard Francis: Lower's Nebula: tricky !

Uploaded by

Richard Francis

Observer

Richard Francis

Observed

2024 Feb 29 - 23:01

Uploaded

2024 May 29 - 23:05

Objects

Sharpless 261

Planetarium overlay

Enable overlay
Show stars
Label stars
Show deep sky objects
Label deep sky objects
Show constellation boundaries
Show constellation sticks
Show constellation labels
Show RA/Dec grid

Constellation

Orion

Field centre

RA: 06^h08^m
Dec: +15°45'
Position angle: +89°55'

Field size

0°53' × 0°57'

Equipment

Officina Stellare UCRC360
Paramount ME II
Moravian C5A-100M

Exposure

~27x300s SII, Ha and OIII

Location

La Romieu, SW France

Target name

Lower's Nebula, Sh2-261

Title

Lower's Nebula: tricky !

About this image

This object, Sh2-261 has the name Lower's Nebula. It's named after Harold Lower and his son, Charles Lower, who discovered it photographically in 1939. They were very capable amateur astronomers, based in San Diego, California. They built an 8-inch Schmidt camera and used red-sensitive film and a deep red filter to search for diffuse galactic nebulae – this was one of their discoveries.

The nebula has low surface brightness and is notoriously difficult to image adequately. My image uses 300s sub-exposures and this is not enough.

It is an HII region and there are several, very different distance estimates: 1000 pc, 1800 pc and 2420±584 pc (ie. 3260 ly, 5870 ly and 7890±1900 ly). Even the closest estimate is very distant.

Files associated with this observation

ID-2024-06_Lowers_Nebula_Rev2.jpg (2.5 MB)

Like this image

Callum Wingrove, Simon Paul Davis, Dr Paul Leyland

Copyright of all images and other observations submitted to the BAA remains with the owner of the work. Reproduction of work by third parties is expressly forbidden without the consent of the copyright holder. By submitting images to this online gallery, you grant the BAA permission to reproduce them in any of our publications.

Registered charity no. 210769
Registered company no. 117572

For more information including contact details, click here.

Our Terms of Use are here.

Our Privacy Policy is here.