NGC 2359 (also known as Thor's Helmet) is an emission nebula in the constellation Canis Major. The nebula is approximately 3,670 parsecs (11.96 thousand light years) away and 30 light-years in size. The central star is the Wolf-Rayet star WR7, an extremely hot star thought to be in a brief pre-supernova stage of evolution. It is similar in nature to the Bubble Nebula, but interactions with a nearby large molecular cloud are thought to have contributed to the more complex shape and curved bow-shock structure of Thor's Helmet.
It is also catalogued as Sharpless 2-298 and Gum 4.
| Object | NGC2359 Thor’s Helmet Nebula |
| Constellation: | Canis Major |
| Position: | RA 07h 18m 40s Dec -13° 12' 08'' |
| Apparent Size: | 6 x 4 arcmins |
| Apparent Magnitude: | 11.5 |
| Distance in light years: | 11960 ly |
| Photo Data | |
| Date: | 19.–21.01.2025 |
| Location: |
El Sauce Observatory Chile (1525m ASL) GPS: 30.472529° S, 70.762999° W |
| Telescope: | CHI-1-CMOS: Planewave CDK24 610 mm, f/d 6.5/3962mm |
| Camera: | QHY 600M Pro, 3.76μm, 9576 x 6382px, Bin-2 4788x3191px, @ T sensor = -10°C |
| Field of View: | 31x21 arcmins |
| Pixel Scale/Resolution: | 0.19 arcsec/px |
| Expose frames/times: | S 31x300s, H 31x300s, O 49x300s |
| Total expose: | 9h 15min |
| Filter: | Astrodon Ha (3nm), SII (3nm), OIII (3nm) |
| Mount: | Mathis MI-1000/1250 with absolute encoders |
| Software: | Siril 1.4, Photoshop CC |
| Remarks: |
© Photos by Peter Cerveny
© Object description/intro text fully or partially by Wikipedia,
which is released under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License