Celestial hemisphere:  Northern  ·  Constellation: Cassiopeia (Cas)
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HFG1 and Abell 6: two really faint objects in one field of view, Charles Bracken
HFG1 and Abell 6: two really faint objects in one field of view
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HFG1 and Abell 6: two really faint objects in one field of view

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HFG1 and Abell 6: two really faint objects in one field of view, Charles Bracken
HFG1 and Abell 6: two really faint objects in one field of view
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HFG1 and Abell 6: two really faint objects in one field of view

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Description

My personal threshold for "faint" is when you can't see the object on individual subs, and it only appears once you stack the exposures. It's the modern equivalent of when an image would slowly appear on the paper as you soaked it in developer. These two planetary nebulae are both well into this category. It's a testament to modern equipment that there are now so many images of these two.

HFG (Heckathorn, Fesen, and Gull) 1 was only discovered in 1982. It is the expanding outer shell of 15th magnitude V664 Cassiopeiae. It's primarily visible in OIII. H-alpha signal is present as a tail extending below it like the tail of a jellyfish, but it's not clear that this gas is associated with the nebula. It may just be background hydrogen. I took an hour of SII exposures to check, and no signal was revealed in that channel, so this is an HOO image.

Abell 6 is more like a classic symmetrical shell, similar to the Soap Bubble. It seems about equally bright in OIII and H-alpha.

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HFG1 and Abell 6: two really faint objects in one field of view, Charles Bracken