NGC 1579 - Northern Trifid Nebula

NGC 1579 (a.k.a. The Northern Trifid Nebula) resembles the very popular Trifid Nebula which is much further south in the night sky from my location.  Ironically it is so far south I can't see it from my yard which is why I only imaged it once several years ago off site.  NGC 1579 is approximately 2,100 light-years away and three light-years across.  It is classified as a diffuse nebula located in the constellation of Perseus and lies within the California Molecular Cloud.  The blue colors are produced by dust reflecting nearby star light as is the case for the Trifid Nebula.  The red color, however, results from an immense  young star that emits a tremendous amount of hydrogen alpha light located within in the nebula.

There are many other objects located in this image as well.   IC 2067 is a bright blue reflection nebula located below and to the right of the NGC 1579.  Other named objects in the image are an Ha region known as LBN 766 (just above IC 2067), a dusty area known as Ced 36 (to the left of IC 2067), and a dark nebula LDN 1482 (lower right corner).  There are several other unnamed dark nebula in this image as well.  If you look carefully one is above NGC 1579 and another one is located directly below NGC 1579.  I cropped the image a small amount but not much so the other objects would still be in the FOV.

Processing was straight forward, however, putting the Ha to use was a bit tough as most of the Ha was limited to the core of the nebula (NGC 1579).  In fact many people don't bother with Ha on this object and the main reason I did was because the moon was out when I started on it.  The other areas had no Ha as it was mainly the dark molecular cloud.  The Ha data detracted the image as a whole.  As a result, I combined only the core region of the Ha into the red channel of the RGB image and the Luminosity image and then combined them together to make the final image as the Ha did sharpen the central portion.

 Dates: 12-1, 12-2, 12-5, 12-6, 12-8, 12-10, 12-13

NGC 1579 - Northern Trifid Nebula
Dates: 12-1, 12-2, 12-5, 12-6, 12-8, 12-10, 12-13
Camera: ZWO ASI1600MM-Pro Telescope: Astro-Tech AT115EDT 115mm Refractor Telescope
Barlow: None
Focal Length: 805mm
f/7
Focal Reducer: AstroTech Field Flatterner/Focal Reducer
Mount: Orion Sirius
Filter Wheel: ZWO EFW 8 x 1.25"
Filter: ZWO Ha, L, R, G, B
Focuser: ZWO EAF
Autoguiding: ASI120 Mini attached to an Agena 50mm Guide Scope/ZWO 60mm Guidescope
Exposure: Ha 46 x 240, L 83 x 90, R 62 x 90, G 50 x 90, B 61 x 90
Gain: 139
Offset 21
Temp: 0 C
Processing: APT, NINA, PixInsight, Photoshop, Topaz DeNoiseAI.

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