M1 The Crab Nebula

The Crab Nebula
M1

I took this in early January 2000 using S-BIG ST-7 through the LX-200. It's 1 exposure of 30 min. set at Bin 2. The Temperature of the CCD was -20ºC. No image processing is applied and it's guided with the ST-7. Dark, Flat fielding and Bias all applied. Focal ratio is F6.3.

M1 lies about one degree Northwest of Zeta Tauri and is about 6,500 light years away from Earth. It is visible with a smallish telescope but can be a little disappointing. It was first discovered by the British armature astronomer John Bevis in 1731. M1 is the gaseous supernova remnant of an explosive star witnessed & recorded by Chinese astronomers in 1054. The explosion was so bright that the star was visible in daylight for 23 days. In the core of the Crad Nebula, a tiny spinning neutron star about the size of a city but more massive than the Sun flashes a beam of energy on & off 30 times a second. This star called a pulsar and is all that remains of the original star that exploded as a supernova in 1054.

Names: - M1, The Crab Nebula, NGC 1952
Constellation: - Taurus
Magnitude: - 8.4
Size: - 6.0' X 4.0'
R.A.: - 5h 34m 33s
Dec: - +22° 0' 59"