W63 (SNR G82.2+5.3) in Cygnus

W63 is a large and faint super­nova rem­nant with a size of 95x65 arcminutes loc­ated in a com­plex region of nebu­los­ity in Cygnus. Oth­er­wise cata­logued as G82.2+5.3, the name of W63 comes from the West­er­hout cata­logue of radio sources, which was pub­lished by the astro­nomer Gart West­er­hout in 1958. The optic­al emis­sion seems to be exclus­ively reserved to the [OIII] emis­sion line and requires a long expos­ure to be vis­ible. The struc­ture con­sists of thin sharply defined fil­a­ments that form a vaguely oval shell. Stud­ies by pro­fes­sion­al astro­nomers have estim­ated the dis­tance to be 10,000 light years. The red emis­sion nebu­los­ity in this area is unre­lated to W63 as it lies at a dif­fer­ent dis­tance. These neb­u­lae are cata­logued in the LBN and DWB cata­logues, most not­ably LBN 325 being the large neb­ula at the top of the image. Vari­ous dark neb­u­lae from the LDN cata­logue obscure parts of this region. The small blue neb­ula near the bot­tom right corner is the plan­et­ary neb­ula PM 1–320, which was dis­covered by Andrea Preite-Mar­tinez in 1988 as a pos­sible plan­et­ary neb­ula and con­firmed to be a true plan­et­ary neb­ula in 2019.

[descrip­tion from Sakib Rasool]

Details

Tele­scope:
Taka­hashi FSQ-106EDX III
Mount:
ASA DDM85
Cam­era:
QHY600M-PH
Fil­ters:
Astro­don Gen2
Expos­ure:
HaOIIIR­GB 400:400:150:140:170 min.
Loc­a­tion:
ROSA Remote Obser­vat­or­ies South­ern Alps
Author:
© Mar­tin Ruster­holz, Astrophotographer

Find­er Chart W63 (SNR G82.2+5.3) in Cygnus

W63 Nebula Sky Chart - Astrophotography Martin Rusterholz

Image cre­ated by Skychart

About Me

Hello, my name is Martin Rusterholz. I’m a Swiss amateur astrophotographer living near Zurich, the biggest town in Switzerland. My interest in astronomy started when I was 16. At that time, I built my first Newtonian telescope and mount. I studied physics at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH) which was the only study including at least some aspects of astronomy and astrophysics. “Looking at the nights sky is an experience touching everybody deeply inside, something common to all human beings independent to the language spoken by the individuals”. Deep-sky astrophotography is my passion.

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