Capturing a first: the Spin Nebula

Amateur astronomers work collaboratively to produce first high-resolution image of little-known nebula He 2-11

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Teamwork makes the dream work, says the old cliché... and it's a maxim that proved true for ShaRA, a group of amateur astronomers who, through their collaborative efforts, recently produced the first high-resolution image of a distant planetary nebula.

The group of 22 mostly Italian astronomers started the ShaRA (Shared Remote Astrophotograph) project as a way of pooling both their financial resources to buy imaging time on large telescopes, and their technical skills to obtain the best results from the collected data.