Chasing the obscure
seems to have worked again. I haven't seen many images
of this pair, and none of the trio. Ic 1295 is a beautiful
planetary with a double shell located near the loose globular
ngc 6712 in Scutum. The planetary has a magnitude of 11
to 15, but is not firmly quoted in my references.
A surprise came when aligning the OIII layer with the RGB using
"difference" blending: a tiny green spot appeared near
1295 that had a central star (only in the negative combination)...
the OIII image is sharper than the RGB so the ring disappears
in the combination, but the green color is vivid. The only
info I could find other than the NED ID of *PN G025.3-04.6* suggested
a magnitude of 5.5 or so, which looks visually about correct.
At my focal length, it is only slightly beyond stellar
in size. The cluster, ngc 6712, is mostly older,
metal-rich stars so it is a bit golden, nice in the crowded field
of Scutum... ic 1295 is all but invisible in the RGB frames,
but really responds to the O-III filter.. |
