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A good friend of mine, Wayne Clark, reminded me that Hubble's Variable Nebula (NGC 2261) is a very interesting object. See the discussion in Burnham's Celestial Handbook, p. 1202. This suggests an exciting amateur project to run a patrol. Look at the results obtained with modest equipment (e.g. 8 in). With JIMSAIP, the changes in brightness levels at specific points within the nebula can be measured and cataloged. Contact me if you would like to participate in a cooperative effort to monitor this interesting object.
These animated images show the changes in the nebula between the first which was taken 11 Feb 1997, the second 10 Mar 1997, and the third 25 Mar 1997. Wouldn't it be neat to extend this series over several months or years? What kind of science could be uncovered?The individual images are composites of 4 5-minute exposures aligned and summed in JIMSAIP. The images were sharpened with the unsharp mask function of JIMSAIP. The resulting images were adjusted for similar brightness ranges and aligned in JIMSAIP.