NGC 7635, Bubble Nebula

NGC 7635 "The Bubble Nebula"

NGC 7662, The Bubble Nebula
This color image (click here for a larger version) is made from wide band blue and green filtered exposures, and a narrow-band H-alpha filter used for both the red channel and the luminance channel. The total exposure was 90 minutes. The H-alpha filter isolates light produced by glowing ionized hydrogen. The image was taken with Kopernik’s 20 inch telescope working at F/5.3 using an SBIG STL-1301E CCD Camera.

NGC 7635 is sometimes called "The Bubble Nebula". Our CCD image shows only a small part of the large complex of glowing gas (mostly H-II) in this area.

"The Bubble" is an expanding shell of glowing gas surrounding a hot, massive star in our Milky Way Galaxy. This shell is being shaped by strong stellar winds of material and radiation produced by the bright star near the top, which is 10 to 20 times more massive than our Sun. These fierce winds are sculpting the surrounding material - composed of gas and dust - into the curve-shaped bubble. The nebula is 10 light-years across, more than twice the distance from Earth to the nearest star. The glowing gas in much of the rest of the image is a dense region of material that is getting blasted by radiation from the Bubble Nebula's massive star. The radiation is eating into the gas, creating finger-like features. This interaction also heats up the gas, causing it to glow. Astronomers estimate that NGC 7635 is about 11,300 light-years away.

Quote from Burnham's Celestial Handbook:

The faint nebulosity NGC 7635, (is) located about 36' distant (from M-52) toward the SW........ The most curious feature of this nebulosity is a faint ovoid arc of gas about 3' in size, resembling a great ghostly bubble (200'' Hale telescope photograph on page 522 of Burnham’s). This object is often classed as a planetary nebula, but can hardly be considered a typical member of that odd family of objects; it may be an ancient nova remnant. Some 2' to the SW lies another large field of faint nebulosity, unnumbered on standard star atlases, but measuring more than one degree in diameter. This field lies on the Cassiopeia-Cepheus border........

NGC 7635
Constellation: Casseopeia
RA: 23h 20m 41.9s
Dec: +61d 12' 00" Epoch 2000
Size (mins): 15
Classification: uncertain

George Normandin, KAS

November 29th, 2010