Jon Talbot caught this phenomenal image of Abell 7 with his SVX152T. Abell 7 is a very faint planetary nebula in the constellation Lepus. Estimated to be 20,000 years old, it lies at a distance of 1,800 light-years. The central star, WD0500-156, is now a blue, white dwarf with an estimated age of 10 billion years.

According to Jon:

“The image was taken with RGB and 5nm Ha and OIII narrow band filters. Abell 7 has an outer shell of red hydrogen emission and an inner shell of mainly blue-green OIII emission with a bit of very faint Ha emission. Although faint it’s quite a striking and beautiful planetary nebula. There is also a very faint band of background Ha emission which goes from left to right across the field of view.”

“Also, within the image field are many small and faint galaxies. In the high res or zoomed in views you can see PGC 16611, a mag 15 galaxy just to the upper right of Abell 7. Another interesting galaxy is the long and thin IC400 which is listed as mag 15.2 or 17.57 depending upon which reference you look at. It lies just below and to the left of Abell 7. Lastly a nice but small (1 arc min) spiral galaxy, mag 14.31 PCG 16581 is in the upper right. Can you find them in the high res view?”

*Visit the following link to get an in-depth look at this image and other versions of it to see the details Jon talks about: Abell 7 (starscapeimaging.com)

Telescope: Stellarvue SVX152T

Mount: Paramount MYT

Camera: ZWO ASI6200

Filters: Chroma 50 nm RGB 5nm OIII, 50mm Astrodon 5nm Ha

Exposure (min): RGBHaOIII 120:120:96:1140:1200 44.6 hrs, 2x2 binning, drizzled to 1x1 resolution

Automation Control: The Sky X, Voyager, PrimaluceLab Eagle 4

Guiding: ZWO ASI 174 mm mini

Software: PixInsight, PS CC

References: Planetary Nebula Abell 7. (n.d.). Starscape Imaging. https://www.starscapeimaging.com/Abell%207/Abell7.html