Sunday, May 11, 2025

The Rice Hat Nebula, about 14,700 light-years away, in the constellation of Auriga, we find Sh2-224, a vestige of an ancient supernova. It is what remains of a massive star that ended its life with a spectacular explosion. This shell of ionized gas, about 40 light-years in diameter, glows red due to H-alpha and blue due to the remnants of oxygen. Its elegant and asymmetrical shape is reminiscent of an Asian rice hat, hence its popular name. Since it is a very faint object, I captured it with two equipment: the TS refractor at 798 mm and the C6-Hyperstar at 308 mm, adding up to 74 hours of exposure with Ha-OIII and SII-OIII filters. But during processing I decided to work only with the 60 hours of data in H-alpha and OIII, since it has been a long process and full of challenges, but seeing how the nebula appeared as the processing progressed has been a spectacular experience.