The Wall - Cygnus Wall That Is...

The Cygnus Wall is part of the more popular North America Nebula (NGC 7000) and is a massive star forming region approximately 20 light-years long.  The whole North America Nebula complex is about  1,500 light-years away in Cygnus an sits in the Milky Way plane.  I have imaged NGC 7000 a few times in the past but not with my AT115 refractor.  The whole region is very large so I decided to focus in on The Cygnus Wall portion.  I feel I am late to this party as most people have moved on but my FOV is always later.  I was done with this three weeks ago but I am extremely busy and have no time to process although I have been imaging as I have two more object in the Que. 

I am really  glad I did in SHO as I was going back and forth with HOO but went with the SHO anyway.  I was not going to use StarNet++ as the stars seemed small and nice to start but I began to process and they become a nuisance so I used it after all  - I was using it in PI but since I did the new PI upgrade it does not work so I do it in Windows.  There was a lot of faint nebulosity around the outside edges which was good and bad so the hard part for me was deciding on what to show and what not to show.  So I decided to use the histogram, I lowered the offset so the histogram went halfway between where I thought it was done and where it would start clipping signal. 

I am happy with how it turned out especially the yellow-gold detail of the Wall itself.  Also, in trying to be different, I decided to keep it flipped so Florida is on the bottom sticking up into the Gulf of Mexico. 

https://kurtzeppetello.smugmug.com/
http://astroquest1.blogspot.com/
http://youtube.com/c/AstroQuest1

The Cygnus Wall (Part of the North America Nebula)
Home Monroe, CT
Date: 9-4-20, 9-5-20, 9-6-20, 9-7-20
Camera: ZWO ASI1600MM-Pro
Telescope: Astro-Tech AT115EDT 115mm Refractor Telescope
Barlow: None
Focal Length: 805
f/7
Focal Reducer: AstroTech Field Flatterner/Focal Reducer
Mount: Orion Atlas Pro
Filter Wheel: ZWO EFW 8 x 1.25"
Filter: ZWO Ha, OIII, SII
Focuser: ZWO EAF
Autoguiding: ASI120 Mini attached to an Agena 50mm Guide Scope/ZWO 60mm Guidescope
Exposure: Ha 69 x 240s, OIII 54 x 240s, SII 53 x 240
Gain: 139
Offset 21
Temp: 15 C
Processing: APT, NINA, PixInsight, Photoshop.

https://kurtzeppetello.smugmug.com/
http://astroquest1.blogspot.com/
http://youtube.com/c/AstroQuest1

Second Image of the Sun - Making some progress

So this is my second image of our sun with my new solar setup.  I believe the seeing conditions were much better than the previous day which made the flare appear sharper.  It is not as sharp as I had hoped but it is still better.  I am still playing around with various processing methods as well.  Also, When trying to get the Sun in the frame, make sure the lower cap is off the Quark.  I spent 20 minutes trying to find the Sun - thinking the Quark is broke - before I saw the somewhat melted plastic cover on the bottom of the Quark.   

I believe Earth would be about half the size of the flare, maybe smaller.  I will work on finding more exact references in the future.

Sun & Solar FlaresHome Monroe, CT
Date: 9-5-20
Camera: ZWO ASI178 MM
Telescope: Orion ED80 F7.5 Refractor
Barlow: None
Focal Length: 600
f/7.5
Focal Reducer: None
Mount: Orion Sirius
Filter: Daystar Quark Chromosphere

Tilt Adjuster: Daystar Interference Eliminator
Exposure: 0.001752
Best 350 of 1000
Gain: 344
Processing: SharpCap, PixInsight, Photoshop.

https://kurtzeppetello.smugmug.com/
http://astroquest1.blogspot.com/
http://youtube.com/c/AstroQuest1

First Image with Solar Setup

Well, at long last I finally got my first image with my new solar set up.  It is not great, looks slightly out of focus to me but that could be due to bad seeing, it was hot and humid and there were high clouds and I was imaging between waves of low clouds. But I am happy I got something.  This camera much faster than the QHY5-II that I was using.  I processed it combining methods described by Cuiv the Lazy Geek and Chuck's Astrophotography.

I was hoping to be much further a long at this point with solar imaging as I ordered this stuff at end of May in the hopes of imaging during the summer when I had time.  Covid19 delays no doubt, but it is finally here.  OPT is probably sick of me calling them, but then again I was rarely able to get anyone. Many people in this hobby are retired or semiretired and can spend a lot of time imaging and processing, I have a few more years before I can join the seasoned crowd.  With that said we started our school year on a hybrid model so I will be extremely busy at least for the next month or two so astrophotography will have to take a back seat for a while. I do have a couple other images in the Que but don't know when I will have time to process them. 

Solar Setup:
Telescope: Orion ED80 F7.5 Refractor
Camera: ZWO ASI178 MM

Filter: Daystar Quark Chromosphere

Tilt Adjuster: Daystar Interference Eliminator

Mount: Orion Sirius or Orion Atlas Pro

Sun & Solar FlaresHome Monroe, CT
Date: 9-4-20
Camera: ZWO ASI178 MM
Telescope: Orion ED80 F7.5 Refractor
Barlow: None
Focal Length: 600
f/7.5
Focal Reducer: None
Mount: Orion Sirius

Filter: Daystar Quark Chromosphere

Tilt Adjuster: Daystar Interference Eliminator

Exposure: 0.00145

Best 300 of 1000  

Gain: 369
Processing: SharpCap, PixInsight, Photoshop.

https://kurtzeppetello.smugmug.com/
http://astroquest1.blogspot.com/
http://youtube.com/c/AstroQuest1

Sh2-132 - Lion Nebula (SHO with RGB stars)

Well this Nebula actually does resemble a Lion, who would have thought.  Sharpless-132 (Sh2-132), a.k.a. the Lion Nebula, is located approximately 10,000 light-years away in the constellation of Cepheus and about 250 LY across.  I have been doing a lot of Sharpless objects lately because they do seem less popular.  I haven't found much information about the nebula other than very hot stars are responsible for ionizing the gases that make it up, this includes two Wolf-Rayet stars.  Also located in this image are two dark nebula, LDN 1161 and LDN 1163 located above the Lion's back.  This object has not been imaged much in years past, however, it has become much more popular these days among amateur astrophotographers.  Cataloged as a Sharpless object hydrogen is dominate element but there is plenty of Oxygen and Sulfur.  I really like the HOO images of this and was planning on doing this with Ha and OIII but decided on SII at the last minute based on weather conditions and the moon.

Normally I would use a model someone's image as a model, however, this time I adjusted the colors to see what gave the most detail but looked cool to me.  The hard part of processing this object was the stars. I tried to keep the stars and process the nebula at the same time but eventually ended up going starless.  Of course StarNet did not work in PixInsight since the new update so I did it using the Windows version.  I actually combined a couple of different methods for adding the RGB stars.  I was not totally satisfied with the stars and after seeing an image from Rodd Dryfoos where he made an HaSHO version, I did that on this image in order to add back some more stars and soften them a bit.  I like the HaSHO a little better but some might prefer the SHO.  

Date: 8-22-20, , 8-23-20, 8-24-20, 8-25-20, 8-30-20

https://kurtzeppetello.smugmug.com/
http://astroquest1.blogspot.com/
http://youtube.com/c/AstroQuest1 

SHO

HaSHO

Sh2-132 - The Lion Nebula
Home Monroe, CT
Date: 8-22-20, , 8-23-20, 8-24-20, 8-25-20, 8-30-20

Camera: ZWO ASI1600MM-Pro
Telescope: Astro-Tech AT115EDT 115mm Refractor Telescope
Barlow: None
Focal Length: 805
f/7
Focal Reducer: AstroTech Field Flatterner/Focal Reducer
Mount: Orion Atlas Pro
Filter Wheel: ZWO EFW 8 x 1.25"
Filter: ZWO Ha, OIII, SII, R, G, B
Focuser: ZWO EAF
Autoguiding: ASI120 Mini attached to an Agena 50mm Guide Scope/ZWO 60mm Guidescope
Exposure: Ha 130 x 240s, OIII 91 x 240s, SII 83 x 240, R 20 x 90s, G 16 x 90s, B 19 x 90s
Gain: 139
Offset 21
Temp: 22 C
Processing: APT, NINA, PixInsight, Photoshop.

https://kurtzeppetello.smugmug.com/
http://astroquest1.blogspot.com/
http://youtube.com/c/AstroQuest1