Emission and Reflection Nebulae

The Dark Shark Nebula

LDN 1235

Cepheus

Dark Nebula

05/04/25

60xLRGB @ 5 minutes, 5 hours total 

Another clear night, fifth in a row and more to come. This is the Shark Nebula, a faint cloud of interstellar gas and dust 650 light-years away in Cepheus. There are a couple of dim blue reflection nebulae as well. The dust cloud obscures the background stars in the shape of a shark. The target was low in the sky and the first quarter Moon was in the sky too so the shark is difficult to see. The big fish slipped silently through the water!

Stellamira 110mm refractor, AVX mount, OA Guiding, LRGB filters, Stellarium, Pegasus, CPWI, NINA, PixInsight. 

The Tadpoles Nebula and the Letter Y Cluster

IC 410/NGC 1893

Auriga

30/01/25

500 x 30 seconds each, LRGB (3:1:1:1) because my guiding calibration refuses to work. 

A tad over four hours. 

Significant because it's my 100th astro image! 😁

Stellarium, Pegasus Unity, CPWI, NINA, PHD2. Stacked and Processed in PixInsight 1.9.2. 

The Flame Nebula and the Horsehead Nebula

NGC 2024 and B33 IC 434

Orion

09/01/25

This is from the third clear night in a Week! I have captured both the Flame and the Horsehead before but not together. The bright star is Alnitak, the Eastern star of Orion's belt. The Flame, next to Alnitak, but in front of, not associated with it, is an Emission nebula and the iconic Horsehead dark nebula Barnard 33 is on the edge of the HII star cloud IC 434.  I captured this with 60 second exposures to help prevent Alnitak from becoming too saturated. 219 x 60 second LRGB. 3 hours 40 minutes total exposure. Humidity and frost threatened the session again so I parked the scope at 22:20 just prior to the meridian flip. There was a waxing gibbous Moon not too far away so I'm pleased this came out as well as it did. The PI Lockhart Gradient Removal Tool is a life saver!

Stellarium, Pegasus Unity, CPWI, NINA, PHD2. Stacked and Processed in PixInsight 1.9.2. 

The Orion Nebula

Messier 42

NGC 1976

Orion

08/01/25

The Orion Nebula M42 is a diffuse nebula in Taurus just below Orion's belt. It is one of the brightest nebulae and is visible with the naked eye. My mount refused to guide so I captured this one with 30 second exposures. 144 x 30 second LRGB. 1 hour 12 minutes total exposure. Humidity and frost ended the session again.

Stellarium, Pegasus Unity, CPWI, NINA, PHD2. Stacked and Processed in PixInsight 1.9.2. 

The Rosette Nebula

Caldwell 49 and Caldwell 50

NGC 2244 and NGC 2238

Monoceros

02/01/25

The Rosette Nebula C49 is the H II region of a giant gas cloud. The stars in the Open Star Cluster C50 formed in the nebula. This is my first astro image for 2025. 59 x L, 19 x RGB @ 180 seconds. Total integration is 5 hours 48 minutes. I could have done another hour or so but the temperature had dropped to -3°C and the humidity was at 99% all night. Everything was covered in frost.

Stellarium, Pegasus Unity, CPWI, NINA, PHD2. Stacked and Processed in PixInsight. 

The Cygnus Wall 

C20, NGC 7000

Cygnus

28/08/24

Here's my go at Caldwell 20, the North America nebula or more specifically, the Cygnus Wall part of it. Seems to be a popular target this week! I captured data over two nights, 2 hours on 26/08/24 and 7 hours on 27/08/24. The first session was intermittent cloud so I didn't use any of it in the end. The second session was very clear all night long. While I was at it I did an All Sky Video of the night sky. 

54 x 240 seconds Luminance, 17 x 240 seconds RGB. Stellarium, Pegasus Unity, CPWI, NINA, PHD2. Stacked and Processed in PixInsight. The colours are a little unexpected but the Photometric Colour Calibration Process seemed happy with it.

Cygnus Emission Nebula

NGC6914

Cygnus

19/07/24

34 x L, 10 x R, 8 x G, 8 x B all at 180seconds. Flats and Darks. 3 hours integration.

I tried the ASI1600MM on the back of the new Refractor. So I went for an LRGB of NGC6914 in Cygnus, a reflection nebula near Sadr in a large emission nebula intermingled with dark nebula too. Looks like one of the blue subs had a satellite trail that didn't get Winsorize Sigma clipped. I should probably blink and process them again. And I need to do the filter offsets again, the blues were not quite in focus. My guiding could have been better, I'm sure the AVX can do better! More tweaking and twiddling required!

The Butterfly of Sadr 

Barnard 347

IC 1318

Cygnus

29/06/24

My Flat frames didn't give an even spread of light and caused the blue speckly blob in the centre. And the flats don't have appeared to have calibrated the Lights. The PI WBPP Script gave a warning about the Master Flat not being used. So I didn't spend too much time processing. Good to see the AVX tracking so well. I need an EAF but maybe I won't bother with a guide scope, I'll just get 500 x 30 second subs with a platesolve/recentre every half an hour!