Bubble Nebula — NGC 7635

The Bubble Nebula is exactly what it looks like — a bubble. A massive star (SAO 20575, roughly 40 times the mass of our Sun) is blowing a shell of gas outward with its stellar wind. The bubble is about 10 light-years across and still expanding.

This was the hardest image in the collection. An entire summer of imaging — roughly two weeks of usable nights at four hours per night. The bubble is deceptively faint despite being visually striking in photographs, and pulling out the shell structure against the surrounding emission requires deep integration.

Shot through a Celestron C11 at f/10 in SHO narrowband. The long focal length was necessary to frame the bubble at a scale where the shell structure resolves cleanly.

Technical Details

• Object: NGC 7635 — Bubble Nebula
• Distance: ~7,100 light-years
• Telescope: Celestron C11 @ f/10
• Filters: SHO narrowband
• Integration: ~56 hours (full summer project)
• Location: Victoria, BC