The Cat’s Eye (NGC 6543) is a planetary nebula in the constellation Draco. Thanks to the Hubble Space Telescope, during the last years it was possible to determine the exact distance from the Earth, which is about 3600 light years.
The nebula was discovered on February 15, 1786 by William Herschel.
The relative brightness of the nebula is 8.1 mag. The cat’s eye has a very complex structure. The central star of the Cat Nebula is about 10,000 times brighter than our Sun! And its diameter is 0.65 times larger than that of our Sun.
Cat’s Eye nebula -NGC6543
| Telescope | ASA 10″ F/3.6 10N ASTROGRAPH OTA |
| Focal length | 900 mm |
| Mount | DDM 85 |
| Imaging camera | Atik 460EX mono |
| Guiding cameras | – |
| Guiding optics | – |
| Focal reducers | ASA 3″ Wynne Corrector 0,85x |
| Constellations | Draco |
| Distance | 3600 light years |
| RA center | 17h 58′ 32″ |
| DEC center | +66°37′ 47″ |
| Location taken | Slovakia |
| Date taken | 07/2022 |
| Pixel scale | 1.04 arcsec/pixel |
| Filters | Astronomik Ha 6nm , Astrodon OIII 5nm, Astrodon RGB, |
| Exposure | 60×600 s. Ha filter, 116x5s. Ha filter 76×600 s. OIII filter 153×120 s. L filter, 256x10s. L filter 68×120 s. R filter, 224x10s. R filter 66×120 s. G filter, 100x10s. G filter 77×120 s. B filter, 166x10s. B filter |
| Total exposure | cca.34,5 hours |
| Processing software | PixInsight, CCD Inspector |
The Cat’s Eye Nebula processing object (RGB-BICOLOR) was captured using Hydrogen-alpha H-α 6nm (656.3 nm), Oxygen OIII 5nm (500.7 nm) and RGB filters. This photo is one of the first where I use the DDM85 mount. The mount eliminates guiding at the star and increases the accuracy of astrophotography.