announcement on Instagram
- A new discovery, supernova remnant G320+42 - The Crown of Thorns Nebula in Virgo! (instagram.com)
A new discovery, supernova remnant G320+42 - The Crown of Thorns Nebula in Virgo! I’ll start this off by saying this nebula should not be here! Supernova remnants are the remains of stars which detonated long ago. Nearly all supernova remnants in the sky exist within 10° of the Milky Way band, where the greatest density of stars can be seen. This remnant lives 42° off the beaten path in VIRGO! It is a remnant that stands alone surrounded by nothing. It is the only supernova remnant in the constellation Virgo. It is so far from where it should be, that my scientist friend Dr. Robert Fesen has doubts that it could be what we think it is, and so a professional observatory has collected data on the object and is now studying it. I discovered this object through a painstaking search of the places of the night sky where nobody looks. The survey run to discover this object took me about 90hrs of exposure time, and two months real time. Capturing of the image took 185 hours of exposure time. Editing it was very challenging. I named this nebula with my best friend @clanger_mcbanger , who has been a bottomless well of inspiration for me as an artist, and the one who really pushed me to get out of my comfort zone with my photography :) I hope yall enjoy the image, and I’ll update you with more info once we learn more about the object!