(= NGC 2437)
|Pup||07h42m / -14°49'||27'||6.1mag|
|NGC 2438||Pup||07h42m / -14°44'||1.3' x 1.3'||10.8mag|
|The open cluster Messier 46 (NGC 2437) and the planetary nebula NGC 2438 in the constellation
Puppis on February 24 / 25, 2014. M46 is about 5500 light years from earth. The planetary nebula NGC 2438 appears to be unrelated to the open cluster
since it is only 3000 light years from earth. Messier 46 was discovered by Charles Messier in 1771, NGC 2438 by William Herschel in 1786
Seventeen exposures of approximately 3 minutes at ISO 800 were added for this shot with the DeepSkyStacker software and the final image processing was done in Photoshop. The total exposure time is 55 minutes. Unfortunately, Messier 46 and NGC 2438 were rather low in the sky and the air was not very steady.
|Equipment: Canon EOS 450Da camera, TeleVue ParaCorr Type II coma corrector, 16" f/4.5 dobsonian telescope "Ninja" riding on a dual-axis Tom Osypowski equatorial platform, Lacerta MGEN autoguider, Lacerta off axis system (field of view comparison: image of the moon with the same equipment).|
Search chart for M 46. Map © 2014 "The Mag-7 Star Atlas Project", www.siaris.net. Map is slightly modified.