M1 - The Crab Nebula

Technical data:Acquisition date: 25 October 2019Exposure: RGB 93x3min -10C, 4,5 hoursTelescope: Orion UK CT8Mount: AZ-EQ6Camera: ZWO ASI294 MC Pro + L-enhanceGuide: TS 60mm scope & T7 cameraControl: EQMOD, Stelarium, APTool, PHD2Processing: PixInsight.

First documented by our Chinese ancestors in 1054, when a giant star exploded creating what is known today as M1 - The Crab Nebula. The Crab Nebula is so named because, as seen through a telescope with the human eye, it appears vaguely like a crab.

Charles Messier initially thought this to be Halley’s Comet and was surprised to discover that it was a mislead. This inspired him to create a catalog of celestial objects that might be mistaken for comets and thus the first in his catalog, "Messier 1".

The Crab nebula is home to a pulsar , a highly dense, rapidly rotating star, roughly 20 kilometers in diameter. The pulsar "beams" rotate once every 33 milliseconds, or 30 times each second and is one of the highest generators of most emission from a nebula throwing everything from radio waves through to gamma rays.