This small but beautiful supernova Remnant (SNR) was the result of the explosion of the star CM Tau, which followed a core-collapse just over 970 years ago. Located at the centre of the Carb Nebula is the remaining Crab Pulsar neutron star, some 30km in diameter spinning at the rate of 30 times per second.
Footnote & credit:Following a recent knee replacement operation I’m currently unable to set-up and use my astronomy equipment, fortunately I’m still able to continue processing using this excellent public amateur data from the MOANA project located near Fort Davis, Texas, USA https://erellaz.com/moana/. Many thanks to its creator Elleraz.
IMAGING DETAILS
Object
M1 Crab Nebula
Constellation
Taurus
Distance
6,500 light-years
Size
6 x 4 arc minutes
Apparent Magnitude
+8.4
Scope
MOANA 10” f/4.5 Newtonian
Mount
Astro-Physics 1100GOTO
Guiding
Off axis guider + QHY 5L2M
Camera
ZWO1600MM Pro
FOV 45’ x 35’ Resolution 0.5915”/pix Image size 4,656 x 3,520 pix
Filters
Baader 36mm RGB & SHO 6.5nm
Capture & Processing
NINA, Deep Sky Stacker & PixInsight v1.9-2
Image Location & Orientation
Centre RA 05:34:32.813 DEC +22:0.00:39.97 Top Left = North
Exposures
Ha x 48, OIII x 52, SII x 54, R x27, G x28m B x 26 sec R all @ 300 sec Total Integration Time: 19hr 35 min
At this time of the year various objects within the Orion Constellation are perhaps the most popular astrophotography targets. Notwithstanding, a few days after imaging The Great Orion Nebula myself early in the New Year, I slewed my camera some 65o further north to the Auriga constellation, location of many other fascinating objects, some of which two years ago I captured in a two panel widefield mosaic. This time it was time to concentrate on just one of those objects, the exciting IC405 AKA the Flaming Star Nebula.
This emission and reflection nebula is a glowing cloud of gas and dust that is illuminated by a powerfully bright blue variable star, AE Aurigae. The object’s epithet arises from the brightly lit ripples of gas and dust at the top of the image, illuminated by the aforesaid AE Aurigae and glowing hydrogen emission. By reducing the dominant reddish hydrogen glow in the image, the full impact bright blue light from AE Aurega can be better appreciated (see image below).
Though some considerable distance from Orion, studies now indicate that the star AE Auriga was probably itself ejected after a collision two million years ago from the Triangulum region of The Great Orion Nebula and, as a runaway star has now made its way to Auriga – what a small world!
IMAGING DETAILS
Object
IC405 Flaming Star Nebula – Emission / Reflective Nebula
Constellation
Auriga
Distance
1,500 light-years
Size
37 x 10 arc min
Apparent Magnitude
+6.0
Scope
William Optics GT81 + Focal Reducer FL 382mm f4.72
Mount
ZWO AM5 + ASIair plus
Guiding
William Optics 50mm guide scope
ZWO120MM mini
Camera
ZWO ASI294MM CMOS sensor
FOV 2.87o x 1.96o Resolution 2.50”/pix Max. image size 4,144 x 2,822 pix
I get a warm feeling at the first view of the Orion constellation each year. Just viewed with the naked eye, late at night against a clear black sky it is a wonderful sight that somehow seems strangely reassuring but for the astronomer and especially astrophotographers, there are many exciting targets that hold great promise, principal of which is M42 the Great Orion Nebula. This winter my first view of Orion was last October, rising from the eastern horizon in the early morning, just as I was about to go to bed after a late-night imaging session. Unfortunately, it was more than two months before the weather relented and I was finally able to snatch an albeit brief image of the said Orion Nebula.
M42 and other nearby diffuse & reflection nebula (M43 & NGC1975 AKA the Running Man Nebula) is one of the most famous star-forming regions, which being the brightest nebula in the northern hemisphere and just over 1,300 light years distance from Earth, can itself also been seen with the naked eye on a clear night. To my surprise, I hadn’t imaged this beguiling object for 6-years, during which much had changed: a new mount, camera & filters + I had learned a few more processing tricks.
Left – Orion constellation from Fairvale Observatory, Redhill; Right – NB image from same location
The Orion Nebula is a gigantic cosmic cloud of interstellar dust and gas, which is the basis for the birth of numerous new stars or a “star nursery” (see starless image below) . Moreover, these powerful, young stars unleash vast streams of ultraviolet radiation that sculpt the nebula into a myriad of fantastic shapes, further highlighted by a red tint that arises due to the presence of hydrogen gas. For astronomers, such activities reveal much about the processes of how stars and planetary systems are formed from collapsing clouds of gas and dust.
Known as the Trapezium, four stars tightly located at the centre of M42 are very difficult to image, because of the overpowering bright white light that obscures this area from sight. However, for astrophotographers the elusive nature of the Triangulum is therefore considered to be the ultimate measure of a good Orion Nebula image. To overcome this problem, the key is to image the nebula across a range of exposures, from very short to long, which can then be compiled into a single final photograph that equally captures details of bright and darker areas alike.
Although poor weather conditions limited the shoot to a relatively short integration time, I’m pleased to say that the subsequent application of various new processing techniques (*see footnote for details) has created an exciting final image, full of detail and colour, as well as the aforesaid Triangulum, that I believe does justice to this magnificent object that is surely the real star of the winter night sky.
Processing Footnotes:
In addition to using the conventional LRGB processing workflow, to uncover the exciting detail that lies within the Great Orion Nebula on this occasion it was necessary to apply some additional processes. First, after ensuring perfect star alignment of all images, the three 180, 60 & 15 second exposure stacks are combined using HR Composition. At first the bright areas of the combined image still look blown-out but, as if by magic, careful application of HDR Multiscale Transformation then reveals the underlying details such as the Triangulum. Thereafter it’s all downhill, except in this case I was further assisted by the use of three new scripts that I can highly recommend:
Blemish Blaster by Seti Astro– helps remove inevitable blemishes of the starless image created by StarXTerminator process, which I found much easier to use than PixInsight’s Clone Stamp mostly with better results too;
Star Stretch also by Seti Astro – Makes the often-tricky action of stretching star images from StarXTerminator a complete doddle;
Astro Image Detail by Hidden Light Photography – An excellent script that makes a great job of teasing out detail from the nebula, that results in a really exciting final image.
IMAGING DETAILS
Object
M42 & more
Constellation
Orion
Distance
1,344 light-years
Size
65 x 60 arc minutes excluding The Running Man
Apparent Magnitude
+4.0
Scope
William Optics GT81 + Focal Reducer FL 382mm f4.72
Mount
ZWO AM5 + ASIair plus
Guiding
William Optics 50mm guide scope
ZWO120MM mini
Camera
ZWO ASI294MM CMOS sensor
FOV 2.87o x 1.96o Resolution 2.50”/pix Max. image size 4,144 x 2,822 pix
EFW
ZWOx8 EFW & 31mm Chroma LRGB filters
Capture & Processing
ASIair plus, Deep Sky Stacker & PixInsight v1.9.2
Image Location & Orientation
Centre = RA 05:35:26.25 DEC -05:25:21.10 Top = North
Exposures
L x25, R x14, G x14, B x10 @ 180 sec = 3hr 9min L x16, R x5, G x8, B x8, @ 60 sec = 20 min L x24, R x12, G x 12, B x12 @ 15 sec = 15 min Total lntegration Time: 3hr 44 min
@ Gain 120 @ -15oC
Calibration
10 x 180 sec Darks 20 x BB Flats & Dark Flats @ ADU 32,000
Location & Darkness
Fairvale Observatory – Redhill – Surrey – UK Typically Bortle 5-6
Long periods of bad weather made 2024 one of the most difficult years for my astrophotography but, I am pleased to say that this, the 11th calendar is another belter! Purchased in 2014, I continue to use a William Optics GT81 telescope for most images taken from home, but this means that I’m running out of suitable targets for this equipment. Part of the answer has been to upgrade related equipment and improve my processing, which I hope you will see reflected in this year’s images. Moreover, I have used new skills and techniques to process the better-quality data in new ways – I hope you like the results?
Below is a brief summary of the calendar images used this year but for other pictures and more detailed information, please refer elsewhere to this website, my Flickr page or Astrobin page. In addtion, a video of the calendar can be viewed HERE on YouTube, which is best accessed on a PC or smart TV screen. The background music this year is from Jean-Michel Jarre’s Oxygène album.
COVER
ASTRO IMAGING MONTAGE: This colourful splash is a random selection of images, mostly taken from Redhill over the past +10-years of my astrophotography.
JANUARY
SEAGULL NEBULA, IC 2177: Located 3,650 light-years from Earth is the emission and reflection nebula complex of the so-called Seagull Nebula, some 200 light-years in size. It’s been 8-years since imaging this object and for good reason. From my location, the bird flies very low on the southern horizon and thus spends much of its time behind houses, trees, and tall hedges!
FEBRUARY
TAURUS MOLECULAR CLOUD: Located northeast of the Pleiades, below (south) the California Nebula (see November), spanning more than 30o of the night sky is the Taurus Molecular Cloud (TMC), a rich area of dark nebulae punctuated by bright areas of new star formation. The TMC is thought to be the nearest star forming region to Earth which, if you look carefully, includes numerous complex dark and reflection nebulae and the odd galaxy.
MARCH
HIND’S VARIABLE NEBULA & HYADES, NGC 1555*: Discovered by the English astronomer John Russell Hind in 1852 this nebula is situated 400 light-years away in the constellation of Taurus, between the stars of Aldebaran and the Pleiades. The nebula is a Herbig-Haro object – a bright patch of nebulosity in which new stars are forming – which often change in apparent size and brightness.
APRIL
LEO GALAXY CLUSTER: With few exceptions, galaxies are located very far from Earth, making them very small from our perspective and a challenge for my equipment. However, here I imaged the spectacular Leo Galaxy Cluster, a mere 330 million light-years from Earth. Containing at least 70 major galaxies, the Leo Cluster unusually consists mostly of spiral galaxies. The bright elliptical galaxy near the centre of the image, has one of the largest known black holes in the universe, which is about 10 billion times more massive than our sun!
MAY
IRIS NEBULA, NGC 7023*: While the focus of the image is the alluring bright blue reflection nebula, careful processing reveals that this celestial flower is enveloped within a vast region of interstellar dust.
JUNE
SOMBRERO GALAXY, MESSIER 104: Seen from Redhill, the Sombrero galaxy is even lower in the summer sky than the aforesaid Seagull, transiting between the trees and along the top of our +15-foot hedge! An unbarred galaxy, its bright bulbous centre is encircled by dark dust lanes, which viewed side-on from Earth creates the appearance of a sombrero hat or perhaps a flying saucer?
JULY
PuWe-1*: Is a very faint planetary nebula in the Lynx constellation, discovered in 1980 by Purgathofer & Weinberger. It is one of the largest planetary nebulae visible, with a diameter like the full moon and at 1,200 light-years, is one of the closest to Earth. A planetary nebula is a region of cosmic gas and dust formed from the cast-off outer layers of a dying star; despite the name, planetary nebulae have nothing to do with planets.
AUGUST
NORTH AMERICA & PELICAN NEBULAE: It’s at this time of the year (August) I usually turn my attention to the Cygnus constellation and the plethora of imaging opportunities it provides, which inevitably tend to be narrowband targets. Interstellar dust illuminated by large bright areas of star formation are responsible for the formation of both these popular objects.
SEPTEMBER
FORSAKEN NEBULA, IC 5068: This complex area is known for the graphically shaped streaks of cold, dark dust clouds that criss-cross the dense, brightly coloured gas regions of nebulosity. Situated within the adjacent Cygnus molecular cloud just below the Pelican Nebula and close to other more famous objects, this low emission nebula is unfortunately known as the Forsaken Nebula!
OCTOBER
THE CHINESE CHARACTER, LDN 673*: It might seem paradoxical but often it is the absence of light that makes an image interesting. About 600 million light-years from Earth, within the Aquila constellation, is Lynd’s Dark Nebula (LDN) 673. Some 7-light years in size, this fragmented dark molecular cloud complex contrasts against the colourful molecular clouds and stars of the Milky Way, which is reminiscent of a Chinese character.
NOVEMBER
CALIFORNIA NEBULA, NGC 1499: Located in the Perseus constellation, in the Orion arm of the Milky Way 1,000 light-years from Earth, NGC 1499 is a large emission nebula about 100 light-years long. First imaged in 2016, new improved data and processing now discloses the full grandeur of this object.
DECEMBER
ROSETTE NEBULA, NGC 2244: Approximately 5,000 light-years away, the vast cloud of gas and dust had been sculpted into the distinctive rose-like shape, while meanwhile a central star cluster has blown-away a large hollow within the molecular cloud. Revisiting this old favourite for the fourth time since 2015, here I have experimented with an unusual colour palette combination that has produced an exciting alternative image of the night sky’s rose.
Footnote: All images taken from Redhill, Surrey or at a dark sky site in New Mexico,USA shown by an asterisk*
It’s at this time of the year I turn my attention to Cygnus and the plethora of imaging opportunities it provides, which inevitably tend to be narrowband targets. This year it is IC 5068, a low emission nebula often overlooked because of its location near the more popular North American and Pelican nebulae, as well as many other fabulous targets within the adjacent Cygnus molecular cloud, and as a result is unfortunately known as the Forsaken Nebula!
Located just below the Pelican Nebula and close to the blue supergiant Deneb star (see above), this complex area is known for the graphically shaped streaks of cold, dark dust clouds that criss-cross the dense, brightly coloured gas regions of nebulosity.
As a narrowband target my initial choice of image processing was the traditional Hubble Palette SHO configuration, which as envisaged, resulted in an exciting and colourful rendition of the busy IC 5068 (see image below). Notwithstanding, having recently discovered some other, fairly new Pixinsight processing techniques (NB Color Mapper & NB Image Blend), I decided to give them a try to produce an alternative blended HOO–S image. Though still very much recognisable as IC 5068, the resulting (warm) colours and details reveal a very different and perhaps more dynamic image (see image at the top of the page).
Narrowband images leave much to the imagination when processing and often take on a stirring look when completed. In the case of IC 5068, each of the images produced seem to have the feel of abstract art, whilst at the same time posing many questions regarding the origin of many unusual features. I believe this exciting region deserves much greater attention and should belong in the pantheon of popular Cygnus objects such as the North American, Pelican & Veil nebulae. Moreover, the so-called Foresaken Nebula warrants a name more befitting of its exciting beauty.
IMAGING DETAILS
Object
IC5068
Constellation
Cygnus
Distance
1,600 light-years
Apparent Magnitude
Various
Scope
William Optics GT81 + Focal Reducer FL 382mm f4.72
Mount
ZWO AM5 + ASIair plus
Guiding
William Optics 50mm guide scope
ZWO120MM mini
Camera
ZWO ASI294MM CMOS sensor
FOV 2.87o x 1.96o Resolution 2.50”/pix Max. image size 4,144 x 2,822 pix
EFW
ZWOx8 EFW & 31mm Chroma Ha, OIII, SII filters
Capture & Processing
ASIair plus, Deep Sky Stacker & PixInsight v1.8.9-3
Image Location & Orientation
Centre = RA 20:51:16.50 DEC +42::30 : 05.30 Top = North
Exposures
Ha x56 + OIII x46 + SII x44 x 300 sec Total Integration Time: 12hr 10 min
@ Gain 120 @ -20oC
Calibration
5 x 300 sec Darks 10 x NB Flats & Dark Flats @ ADU 32,000
Location & Darkness
Fairvale Observatory – Redhill – Surrey – UK Typically Bortle 5-6
Date & Time
14th 18th 19th September + 3rd & 10th October 2024 +20.15h
Like many astrophotographers, the Rosette Nebula holds a special attraction for me; it’s size, details and colours produce a perfect narrowband target. I revisited the old favourite again this year for the fourth time since 2015 (+2017 & 2018), in an attempt to capture even better its unique and dynamic beauty using newer equipment, skills, and techniques.
Located approximately 5,000 light-years away, this vast cloud of gas and dust has been sculpted into a distinctive rose-like shape. The central star cluster (NGC 2237) has blown-away a large hole within the surrounding molecular cloud (NGC 2244), which all together is some 1.7 degrees or 150 light-years in diameter. Numerous star-producing dark Bok globules are visible along the upper-left, central quadrant of the nebula, collectively referred to as the “Carnival of Animals”.
The skies this winter have been poor and, as a result, imaging possibilities have been very limited. However, over five nights from January to March I was eventually able to obtain 9-hours of Ha, OIII and SII integration time which, moreover, produced a good data set of 10-minute exposures.
I’m very pleased with the final SHO image (top of the page), which successfully displays the intricate details and colours that arise from the aforesaid make-up and processes that makes the nebula so popular. Furthermore, experimenting with an HSS palette produced an alternative and exciting image of this rose of night sky (see above), that might be even more in-keeping with its given moniker. All-in-all, despite this year’s difficulties I’m satisfied that I gave the Rosette my best shot, which is definitely a cut above my previous attempts – though I fully expect to return again in a few years seeking further improvements.
IMAGING DETAILS
Object
Rosette Nebula NGC 2244 + 2237, 2238, 2239 & 2246
Constellation
Monoceros
Distance
5,000 light-years
Size
Approx. 100 light-years ~ 1.3o
Apparent Magnitude
+9.0
Scope
William Optics GT81 + Focal Reducer FL 382mm f4.72
Mount
SW AZ-EQ6 GT + EQASCOM computer control & Cartes du Ciel
Guiding
William Optics 50mm guide scope
+ Starlight Xpress Lodestar X2 camera & PHD2 guiding
Camera
ZWO ASI294MM CMOS sensor
FOV 2.87o x 1.96o Resolution 2.50”/pix Max. image size 4,144 x 2,822 pix
EFW
ZWOx8 EFW & 31mm Chroma Ha, OIII, SII filters
Capture & Processing
Astro Photography Tool (APT), Deep Sky Stacker & PixInsight v1.8.9-2
Image Location & Orientation
Centre = RA 06:31:55.304 DEC +05:00:56.913 Left = North
Exposures
Ha x18 + OIII x18 + SII x18 x 600 sec R x20 + G x20 + B x20 x 60sec Total Integration Time: 10hr
@ Gain 120 & 30 Offset 21 @ -15oC
Calibration
5 x 600 sec Darks 10 x NB Flats & Dark Flats @ ADU 32,000
Location & Darkness
Fairvale Observatory – Redhill – Surrey – UK Typically Bortle 5-6
Date & Time
19th January, 12th February, 6th 7th March 2024 @ +20.00h
This Christmas marks the 10th edition of my astrophotography calendar, consisting of my better images from the previous 12-months, which I produce for myself and members of the family. Wow doesn’t time fly? Based on these images, I also compile a video of the images set to music, which we all watch together before seeing the actual calendar. It’s become something of an occasion and is a great way to present the images, which look wonderful on today’s smart TV’s and is fun to watch and share with the family.
THE CALENDAR
Much longer imaging times (total of more than 145 hours), re-imaging old favourites in new ways and unusual, overlooked, or difficult objects, resulted in a very good 2023 astrophotography year and perhaps the best calendar yet? The calendar for 2024 on YouTube can be viewed by clicking HERE and below is a brief overview of each image. More detailed background information and imaging details for those interested can be found in relevant blogs I posted on this website. The background music is the track Appleshine from Underworld’s album Drift.
COVER
SH2-284: Close-up of April’s image – along the inside of the ring structure are many dark dust pillars and globules, which on the right seem to resemble a hand with a bony finger pointing inwards!
JANUARY
NGC 1333: Nestled within the western area of the Perseus Molecular Cloud, some 1,100 light-years from Earth is the colourful NGC 1333 reflection nebula, one of the closest and most active star-forming regions of the night-sky.
FEBRUARY
Spaghetti Nebula: Straddling the boundary of Taurus and Auriga constellations, is the giant supernova remnant (SNR) Simeis-147. The stellar explosion occurred 40,000 years ago, leaving a rapidly spinning neutron star or pulsar at the core of the now complex and the expanding SNR.
MARCH
Aurora Borealis: Situated just below the Arctic Circle, Iceland is well known both for its geology and views of the Aurora Borealis, which we saw in March on the south coast near Kirkjubaejarkklaustur.
APRIL
SH2-284: A star-forming region of dust and gases, sculpted by radiation and interstellar winds emanating from a young (3 to 4 million years) star cluster located near the centre.
MAY
M3 Globular Cluster*: Consisting of 500,000 stars and over 11 billion years old, M3 is one of150 globular clusters that orbit around the Milky Way Galaxy.
JUNE
M27 Apple Core Nebula*: A planetary nebula, consisting of a glowing shell of ionized gas ejected from a red giant star in its late stage of life to become a white dwarf. Complex hydrogen (red) and oxygen (blue) fans form around the outer regions, with a pulsar-like beam transecting the nebula.
JULY
Monkey Head Nebula: Located6,400 light years from Earth in the Orion constellation, the ‘Monkey’ is a so-called emission nebula, where new stars are being created within at a rapid rate.
AUGUST
SH2-115: This widefield image contains a richness of various emission nebulae, centred around the distinctive large blue SH2-115 region. Just to the left of SH2-115 is the small but enigmatic SH2-116 a faint, blue disc thought to be a planetary nebula.
SEPTEMBER
LDN-768 Black Cat Nebula: Close to M27 in the constellation of Vulpecula (“Little Fox”), is a dense region of stars broken-up by dark nebulae to create intriguing shapes. Here strung out from left-to-right, several of the dark nebulae seem to coalesce (visually) to create the form of a black cat.
OCTOBER
SH2-126 Great Lacerta Nebula: On the western edge of the Milky Way in the southern part of Lacerta, is the very large but faint emission nebula SH2-126. The red filament structures stretch over 3 degrees, to the right is the Gecko Nebula, a molecular cloud associated with bright young stars.
NOVEMBER
Flaming Star & Tadpoles Nebula: Two emission nebulae: dust & gas of the Flaming Star (below) combined with red ionized hydrogen gas produces a flame affect. Above, the stellar winds and radiation pressure from hot massive stars creates the Tadpoles ‘wriggling’ away from the centre.
DECEMBER
M51 Whirlpool Galaxy*: As the smaller galaxy passes behind M51, joint gravitational forces are interacting, resulting in the misalignment of stars and unusually bright blue and pink areas across the Whirlpool galaxy. Their fates are inextricably linked and might eventually merge.
Footnote: All images taken from Redhill, Surrey or telescope at a dark sky site in New Mexico,USA shown by an asterisk*
Constellation names mostly originated from ancient Middle Eastern, Greek, and Roman cultures, when they identified groups of stars and named them after their gods, goddesses, animals, and objects that were important to them. Other world-wide groups and throughout time – Native American, Asian, and African – have also made and named similar pictures from star groups based on their cultures and related beliefs. Given the number of stars observed when looking up into a clear dark sky, it is obviously helpful to ‘construct’ familiar patterns and adopt memorable names, which can then be used to identify areas of the sky in a way that can be easily identified by all. I have no problem with this long and well-established convention, which despite their antiquity works just as well in the modern world but I do have an issue with nicknames.
I’ve smiled at some of the nicknames given to popular, usually deep sky objects that have been well established by astronomers, but despite the possible use of describing their form, I am increasingly finding them a distraction when considering the merit of astrophotography images: Seagull Nebula, Running Man Nebula, Pelican Nebula etc. The problem is that they absolutely do look like the object they’re meant to depict but, like an earworm is to music, once seen they are difficult to view any other way.
With this partly in mind, for the first time in seven years I recently chose to image NGC 2174 again. I previously used the William Optics GT81 with a modded Canon 550D DSLR camera, which resulted in an image that wasn’t too bad, except it looked like a monkey! Given its nickname of the Monkey Head Nebula, this was to be expected but unfortunately, thereafter the picture of a monkey has remained with me ever since when I view NGC 2174 images. The challenge on this occasion was therefore to limit the monkey’s impact on the image, thereby showing the object for what it really is – an emission nebula.
Using the same OTA but with a mono CMOS camera and a good set of filters, the new data set obtained was much improved, and with better processing experience it was time to see the monkey (or not) in a new light. The first thing to do was present the image in an orientation that produces a more favourable perspective (less monkey like). Using a basic SHO palette in PixInsight the initial image was promising (see below) but with an alternative PixelMath dynamic SHO palette* and then processing with autocolor script, color saturation, Russell Croman’s XT-suites and other tweaks, I was pleased to see that the monkey was nowhere to be seen in the final image (see image at the top-of-the-page), or at least to my eye.
At last, it is now possible to look at NGC 2147 and see the inherent features of this interesting emission nebula, where new stars are being born at a rapid rate. Moreover, the inner details can now be clearly viewed within, thus also showing the associated open star cluster NGC 2175 and more. As a result of this monkey make-over, the NGC 2174 image now not only looks much better but critically, I no can longer see the ape! Now where’s that Seagull?
IMAGING DETAILS
Object
NGC 2174
Constellation
Orion
Distance
6,400 light-years
Size
40 arc secs
Apparent Magnitude
+6.80
Scope
William Optics GT81 + Focal Reducer FL 382 mm f4.72
Mount
SW AZ-EQ6 GT + EQASCOM computer control & Cartes du Ciel
Guiding
William Optics 50mm guide scope
+ Starlight Xpress Lodestar X2 camera & PHD2 guiding
Camera
ZWO ASI294MM CMOS sensor
FOV 2.87o x 1.96o Resolution 2.50”/pix Max. image size 4,144 x 2,822 pix
SH2-284 is an HII star forming region of dust and gases, sculpted by the radiation and interstellar winds emanating from the young (3 to 4 million years) open star cluster Dolidze 35 located near its centre. Along the inner edge of the main ring structure are numerous dark dust pillars and Bok Globules, not unlike those of the Elephant’s Trunk nebula, of which the largest seems to resemble a hand with a large bony finger at the end pointing inwards (see cropped + rotated image below).
Despite its close resemblance to the Elephant’s Trunk and the nearby Rosette nebula, the emission nebula SH2-284 is by comparison somewhat overlooked. Being some x8 times further away it’s apparent size is a good deal smaller and much fainter in nature but still forms an excellent late winter image target.
IMAGING DETAILS
Object
SH2-284 or LBN 983
Constellation
Monoceros
Distance
18,000 light-years
Size
0.50o
Apparent Magnitude
Faint
Scope
William Optics GT81 + Focal Reducer FL 382mm f4.72
Mount
SW AZ-EQ6 GT + EQASCOM computer control & Cartes du Ciel
Guiding
William Optics 50mm guide scope
+ Starlight Xpress Lodestar X2 camera & PHD2 guiding
Camera
ZWO ASI294MM CMOS sensor
FOV 2.87o x 1.96o Resolution 2.50”/pix Max. image size 4,144 x 2,822 pix
Centre = RA 06:45:20.506 DEC +00:18:12.758 Right = North Top = East
Exposures
Ha 53 x 300 sec, OIII 36 x 300 sec, SII 36 x 300sec = 11hr 30 min R 35 x 60 sec, G 35 x 35 sec, B 34 x 60 sec = 1hr 44min Total Integration Time: 13hr 14 min
@ 120 Gain 30 Offset @ -15oC
Calibration
5 x 300 sec & 20 x 60 sec Darks + 15 x LRGB & Ha, OIII, SII Flats & Flat Darks @ ADU 32,000
Location & Darkness
Fairvale Observatory – Redhill – Surrey – UK Typically Bortle 5-6
There’s a lot going on in and around the Auriga constellation and this winter I’ve been mainly imaging in this region, almost exclusively using the Samyang 135 widefield rig. Here with the whopping 7.50o x 5.67o field-of-view this set-up provides, it easily incorporates both emission nebulae IC405, AKA the Flaming Star Nebula and it’s nearby (visually) neighbour IC410, the Tadpoles Nebula, as well as much more.
Hydrogen gas ionized by the central AE Auriga star produces the dominant strong red colour, which combined with the rippling dust and gas lanes that run through the head of IC405 leads to a ‘flame affect’ and thus the nebula’s popular nickname.
The structures in IC410 are illuminated by radiation from the open star cluster NGC1893, located at the centre of the nebula. Hot, massive, young stars abound, especially around Simeis 129 & 130, the two tadpoles. These structures are ‘wriggling away’ from the centre of the nebula, because of the prevailing stellar winds and radiation pressure from the stars in NGC 1893.
This image is the cornerstone of a series of covering a wider area completed during January, which I intend to first present individually before, hopefully, bringing them together as an HOO mosaic later.
This image has been processed as two SHO versions of the Hubble Palette: (i) a basic mix above and (ii) using a dynamic mix ( main cropped image at top-of-the page). Once more I have been impressed by the ability of this small camera lens to produce exceptional detail and colours, but especially here with the starless Ha version of IC410, where the signature features or so-called tadpoles have been captured to great effect (see cropped starless Ha version of IC410 below).
IMAGING DETAILS
Object
IC 405 The Flaming Star Nebula + IC 410 The Tadpoles Nebula
Constellation
Auriga
Distance
1,500 & 12,000 light-years
Size
Approx. 37’ x 10’ & 40’ x 30’
Apparent Magnitude
+6.0 & +10
Scope / Lens
Samyang 135 @f2.8
Mount
SW AZ-EQ6 GT + EQASCOM computer control & Cartes du Ciel
Guiding
Sky-Watcher EvoGuide 50ED
+ Starlight Xpress Lodestar X2 camera & PHD2 guiding
Camera
ZWO1600MM-Cool mono CMOS sensor
FOV 7.5o x 5.67o Resolution 5.81”/pix Max. Image Size 4,656 x 3,520 pix
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