Michael Heinick's Image of NGC7008 In Cygnus

Recently, I (Michael) acquired some images of NGC7008 that were combined to make a single LRGB color image. The structural details and color variation of the nebula surprised me.  These include star-like points surrounded by dark circular zones, faint swirls of nebulosity extending from the southeast, the north-south running dark lane, and the small patch of nebulosity at the north end with a nice color contrast.

The dark circular zones are especially interesting because, at first look, they appear to surround stars embedded within the nebula.  The most prominent of these is to the northwest of the central star.  It surrounds a bright patch that would be the third brightest star within the nebula.  I checked the Hubble archive and found images of NGC7008 in two wavelengths, all underexposed.  The preview images show no star at the center of this dark zone, just a bright patch of nebulosity.  There are two or three smaller, fainter dark zones on the west side of the south end of NGC7008.

I acquired my images of NGC7008 from my backyard in Laurel, Maryland, using an SBIG ST7e CCD camera with a CFW-8 filter wheel attached to a Celestron C11 telescope on a Losmandy G-11 mount.  The luminance component consists of three 10 minute exposures taken on July 1, 2000.  The color component, taken July 7, 2000, is a combination of 1 red, 1 green, and 2 blue 30 minute exposures.  In the image, north is up and east is to the left.

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August 2000