The Valentine Rose Nebula - Sh2-174, Better Call Glenn & Joe

Sh2-174 or the Valentine Rose Nebula (PK 120+18.1) was originally thought to have been a planetary nebula with ionized hydrogen and oxygen but one of the issues was that no white dwarf progenitor star had been found. Finally a white dwarf was discovered in the central portion of the blue region. It is the small blue star south of the very large white star in the top of the blue region. Most PNs have the progenitor star in the center but this one was offset so it was suggested that the strong tidal nature of the area blew the gases away from the star. However, a 2008 doctoral student discovered the star is much older than the nebula and could not have caused it. So the new hypothesis is that the white dwarf is merely passing through the ionized hydrogen cloud. The nebula is located about 950 light-years away in the constellation of Cepheus.

This image of SH2-174 was a collaboration project between myself, Glenn Clouder and Joe Navara. Together we have just under 72 hours of total integration time on this target. Joe did the initial preprocessing and although all of us produced an image, Glenn's was clearly the best so we went with his version. Kudos to Glenn!

Other images consist mainly of Ha and OIII so we decided to be a little different and collected SII in addition. Joe and I did a traditional SHO combination whereas Glenn went with a HSO combination. This object is very dim so you will need lots of exposure. I decided to use my EdgeHD800 with Hyperstar in order to collect my portion of Ha. For the SII and OIII I used my AT115 refractor with a 0.8x FR. Joe collected all his data with a Williams Optics WP81 refractor with a 0.8x FR while Glenn went with a OOUK CT10 Newtonian reflector.

Check out the video of our collaboration:
https://youtu.be/mnuHcGJL5lw

Imaging Details:
Kurt
EdgeHD800 w/hyperstar Ha 108 x 300s (9h)
AT115 Refractor w/0.8FR OIII 100 x 300s (8.3h)
AT115 Refractor w/0.8FR SII 36 x 300s (3h)

Joe
WO Z81 w/.8FR Ha 40 x 600s (6.7h)
WO Z81 w/.8FR OII 48 x 600s (8h)
WO Z81 w/.8FR SII 70 x 600s (11.7h)

Glenn
OOUK CT10
Ha 57 X 600s (9.5h)
Oiii 36 X 600s (6h)
Sii 58 X 600s (9.7h)