The emission nebula NGC 2359, sometimes referred to as Thor's Helmet, is located in the constellation Canis Major. The nebula is located at a distance of 3,670 parsecs (11.96 thousand light years) and has a diameter of 30 light years. The Wolf-Rayet star WR7, which is incredibly hot and is assumed to be in a brief pre-supernova stage of evolution, is the star in the centre of the nebula. Although it shares many characteristics with the Bubble Nebula, interactions with a neighbouring massive molecular cloud are considered to have had a role in giving Thor's Helmet its more intricate form and bent bow-shock structure. Other catalogue numbers for it are Sharpless 2-298 and Gum 4.
Although the nebula has intricate filamentary features, its general shape is that of a bubble. In addition to several thousand more solar masses of unionised gas, the nebula contains several hundred sun masses of ionised material. Although some material does appear to be enriched with the by-products of fusion and is most likely to have come directly from the star, the majority of it is interstellar material swept up by winds from the core star. The nebula's expansion rate fluctuates between 10 km/s and at least 30 km/s, giving it an estimated age between 78,500 and 236,000 years.
Thor's Helmet located in Canis Major which resides close to Orion Nebula and Rosette Nebula. Zotti, G., Hoffmann, S. M., Wolf, A., Chéreau, F., & Chéreau, G. (2021). The Simulated Sky: Stellarium for Cultural Astronomy Research. Journal of Skyscape Archaeology, 6(2), 221–258. https://doi.org/10.1558/jsa.17822
Thor's helmet is on one of the Galactic arms of our galaxy and resides close to Orion Nebula and Rosette Nebula. in a triangle pattern from each other. Thor's Helmet is a small target but has a lot of faint nebulosities which require a lot longer exposure time to bring out but is possible with a One Shot Camera (OSC) but more easily accomplished with a monochrome camera and Narrowband filters.
The picture Below is with a OSC and the RASA8 which was 1hr 30mins of total exposure at 60 second sub-exposures.
The picture Below is with a OSC and the RASA8 which was 1hr 30mins of total exposure at 60 second sub-exposures.
The equipment used for this target was my usual setup listed below:
All the data was stacked with DeepSkyStacker and Processed in Pixinsight. (Other software is available which is free and will is linked in the information tab)
Processing this target was generally straightforward, but getting the faint detail out without destroying the background and details was tricky at times. This was on my bucket list for a while and the opportunity was taken when (somehow) the clear (ISH!) skies matched up with no moon making this object an almost essential target since it was at its highest peak.
- Scope – Celestron RASA 8
- Mount - Skywatcher EQ6 R Pro
- Guide scope – ZWO 30mm
- Guide Camera – ZWO ASI 120mm mini
- Main Camera – ZWO Asi 533mc Pro
- Control box – ZWO ASIAIR Pro
- Filter – IDAS NBZ Nebula Booster 2”
- Starizona Filter drawer next to the camera sensor
- Fox Halo 96k power bank
- Dew heater with its own power bank on the guide scope
- the Main scope Celestron ring dew heater powered though ASIAir
All the data was stacked with DeepSkyStacker and Processed in Pixinsight. (Other software is available which is free and will is linked in the information tab)
Processing this target was generally straightforward, but getting the faint detail out without destroying the background and details was tricky at times. This was on my bucket list for a while and the opportunity was taken when (somehow) the clear (ISH!) skies matched up with no moon making this object an almost essential target since it was at its highest peak.