I initially captured Sh2-232 (Great Pumpkin Nebula) in Auriga as a time-filler since the Milky Way and most of the nebulae are already on the west side of the meridian by the time it gets dark -- and pickings in Feb/March get slim for nebulae after about 11:00 pm.
But it turned out to be a very interesting target! There 3 other nebulae in the frame (Sh2-235, Sh2-231, and Sh2-233; ordered from closest to Sh2-232 to the farthest away), as well as a planetary nebula (PK173+03.1) at the center of Sh2-232! There also is a misclassified planetary nebula, PK173+02.1 just below Sh-235, but it now appears to be an HII region (Sh2-235A) associated with Sh2-235. Sh2-232 itself has some nice dust lanes in it as well.
Of course, I had to process this one in the ‘Pumpkin’ palette since it’s, well, a pumpkin! 😊 If you rotate the image 90 degrees clockwise, you can see the Great Pumpkin much better.
Hi Greg, I thought I replied but likely forgot to hit enter… I do this a lot. A beautiful image of these objects in perfect pumpkin colors. I’ve not heard of them before so I’ll add them to my list as well. Most of the sharpness catalog are a bit foreign to me and I see them in my Charles Bracken book, but there is no associated image in Sky Safari for me to see. I need to get another catalog.
Best,
Terri
@terri Thanks, Terri. This was an interesting side-project! Had fun with it.
Greg
