| Description | The Crab Nebula was discovered by John Bevis in 1731, and cataloged by Messier on August 28, 1758: "Nebula above the southern horn of Taurus, it doesn't contain any star; it is a whitish light, elongated in the shape of a flame of a candle, discovered while observing the comet of 1758.". <--> This is a classic target, long thought to be a supernova remnant due to its location in Taurus and accounts by Chinese Astronomers of a July 1054 "new star" that appeared in the sky and shown in daylight for 23 days. In my capture it resembles an oval membrane covered with a network of bright pink and less-bright teal-blue filaments, presumably dimly ionized gas. Today it's a relatively easy capture with a modern CMOS camera. I'd always wondered why it was called the Crab Nebula... then saw the sketch by Lord Rosse (see gallery) while researching this post. I realized through an eyepiece, even a powerful one, you see only the bright parts of the nebula and markings which, if you squint at the photo, indeed look like a crab. Messier mistook this object for Halley's Comet in 1758, which inspired him to being cataloging his list and accounts for its designation as M1. I've also included an observation I made in December of 2022 with my Evo 9.25 with reducer. The greater light gathering power of the 9.25 allows the blue veins to be slightly more visible. Visual observation can't prove this is a supernova remnant, but radio and x-ray observations find the object is illuminated by a pulsing, neutron star which is indeed definitive proof of a supernova remnant. |
