M1--The Crab Nebula

In 1054, Chinese astronomers observed a bright supernova (what they called, a "guest" star). The nebula was first observed in 1731 by John Bevis, and became the first object to be associated with a supernova. In 1840, Astronomer William Parsons observed the object with a 36 inch telescope. To Parsons, the object looked like a Crab--hence the name we popularly call this object today.

The Crab is one of my favorite objects in the sky, and, as I had not imaged it since 2016, I decided it was time to take another look at an old friend.

The nebula is "energized" by the Crab Pulsar--the neutron star remnant of the supernova that created the nebula. The pulsar is around 30 km in diameter and spins at 30.2 revolutions per second. In an incredible achievement, an amateur with a webcam and a small scope built a "chopper" that enabled him to image the pulsar's energy rippling through the nebula. Here is the link: http://www.threehillsobservatory.co.uk/astro/astro_image_33.htm

My own image shows clearly the filamentary structure of the image:

The image was captured with an 8 inch, f/3.9 astrograph and imaged with a Mallincam DS 2.3+ imager. This is a stack of 40 x 20s integrations.

Here's a slightly more processed image to bring out contrast:

and finally, here's an inverted image, processed to show the filamentary structure in a little more detail: