WR 134 (HOO)

WR 134 is a star located in Cygnus approximately 6,000 light-years away. It is a special type known as a Wolf-Rayet star, which releases intense radiation and strong solar winds carrying its outer layers. The star (HD 191765) is the bright yellow star sitting between the two bright blue stars in the center of the nebula. The blue arc was produced when the radiation and particles from the outer layers collided with the ambient nebula already in the region. The blue oxygen rich region is strongest in the upper left portion where it forms the arc, it is visible surrounding the star forming a bubble.

I really love this region and will most likely be back with different equipment. Most objects have an optimal focal length (magnification + field of view) with what looks good, however, this object in particular looks good at many different focal lengths from 400mm to 1400mm which is what I used with the 0.7 focal reducer. I processed this emphasizing HOO, but again, there are many fantastic different versions out there.

As usual I would have loved to get more time on it especially since it was with a OSC camera, in fact I was out there many nights wading through supposedly clear nights, however, I am happy with the image. This is one object I would definitely put on anyone's to-do list who has an OIII filter since it can be imaged well with any telescope but you may need to block out some time as it is dim.

WR 134 (HOO)
Dates: 8-1, 8-2, 8-3, 8-6, 8-20
Camera: ZWO ASI294MC-Pro
Telescope: Celestron EdgeHD 800
Barlow: None
Focal Length: 2032mm (native), 1400mm
F/10 (native), F/7
Focal Reducer: Celestron 0.7 Reducer Lens
Mount: Orion Atlas Pro
Filter Adaptor: ZWO Filter Drawer
Filter: IDAS NBZ, Baader UV-IR
Focuser: ZWO EAF
Autoguiding: ASI120 Mini attached to an Orion ST80
Exposure: Baader UV-IR 66 x 90, NBZ 184 x 180
Gain: 139
Offset 0
Temp: 0 C
Processing: Asiair app, PixInsight, Photoshop, StarXTerminator, Topaz DeNoiseAI.

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North America & Pelican Nebulae (IDAS NBZ Filter Test)

This is the North America Nebula (NGC 7000) and the Pelican Nebula (IC 5070) in the same frame. If you saw my previous post, I did this object with the Baader Neodymium (Moon & Skyglow) Filter and this image was done with the IDAS Nebula Booster NBZ Filter. As I stated last time, the filters are quite different in what they are designed for and the light they filter. The Baader Skyglow is a broadband filter which allows for most light to pass through but certain wavelengths commonly associated with streetlights are blocked. The IDAS NBZ is a dual narrowband filter that only allows for certain wavelengths (~500nm & 656nm) which correspond to Oxygen III (495.9nm & 500.7nm) and Hydrogen Alpha (656.3nm).



As expected, this version looks quite different from the Baader image. The overall color from the image using the NBZ filter is heavier in red which is due to its high abundance of hydrogen and the lighter colors scattered throughout are due to the oxygen. In addition to showing more of the nebulosity, the finer detail is much more apparent. This image shows fine strands and puffy clouds which are not always visible in the other image.

To process this image I separated the stacked image into red, green, and blue channels. The reason for this is because I wanted to create hydrogen (Ha) and oxygen (OIII) images out of the RGB. Since the hydrogen wavelength is in the red spectrum, the red band was used for Ha. The OIII wavelength is a little tricky as it mostly resides in the green-blue spectrum so I made the oxygen from a blend of 70% green and 30% blue - this combination is used because the oxygen band is mostly in the green band. I then combined the Ha in the red band and OIII in the green and blue bands making it an HOO image. The advantage is it gets rid of some unwanted noise and brings out a bit more detail.

North America & Pelican Nebulae (IDAS Nebula Booster NBZ Filter Test)

Dates: 8-18-22
Camera: ZWO ASI2600MC-Pro
Telescope: Canon EF 200mm f/2.8L II USM Lens
Barlow: None
Focal Length: 200mm
f/4 with stepdown rings
Focal Reducer: None
Mount: iOptron SkyGuider Pro
Filter Wheel/Drawer: ZWO EOS Filter Drawer
Filter: IDAS Nebula Booster NBZ Filter
Focuser: None
Autoguiding: ASI120 Mini attached to a ZWO Mini 30/120mm Guidescope
Exposure: 49 x 180
Gain: 100
Sensor Temp: 0 C
Processing: ASIAIR Pro, PixInsight, Photoshop, StarXTerminator.
Power: BINZET AC to DC 12V 10A 120W Power Supply

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North America & Pelican Nebulae (Baader Neodymium Filter Test)

I have not imaged both the North America Nebula (NGC 7000) and the Pelican Nebula (IC 5070) in the same before so I figured this would be an excellent object to do some more testing. I wanted to compare the Baader Neodymium (Moon & Skyglow) Filter with the IDAS NBZ Filter so there will be another image using the NBZ once the weather permits and I image it. The filters are quite different in what they are designed for and light they filter out so it is not a comparison which is better but more about what each filter can do.

I am very impressed with this Skyglow Filter especially since it was done when the moon was up. There were some gradients but nothing the flats could not handle. There is very good dynamic range across the both nebulae, more than was expected. I like how the outer sharp dense red portions grade into the white inner regions. The Wall, 'outer red portion of Mexico' is very distinctive as are some of the other red tendrils on the North America and edge of the Pelican.  On the center right side of there is a small white cloud which is actually a reflection nebula, IC 5076, that I never new was there.

Another interesting thing about this image is that it is only 1.5 hours of exposure (45 x 120s). I did not go to longer exposures since it was a broadband image and the moon was out but despite that it came out rather well, much better than I was expecting. I used Bill Blanshan's star reduction - my new favorite star reduction method to reduce the heavily star-packed region as this sits in the Milky Way plane.

Lastly, I did not create flats for this image at first and wound up with the heavy gradients. You can see where the step-down rings exacerbate the gradient issue (Fig. 2). There are ways to fix this in post processing using heavy careful curve adjustments and/or synthetic flats which is what I did for the previous M16-M17 image. However, I decided to make a set of flats even though I imaged other objects with other filters in between - it worked as the gradients were removed or lessoned (Fig. 3). I show this because I see a lot of posts saying that it is useless to do flats after moving the imaging train. The original function of a flat field is to get rid of the uneven gradients from the background. They do have another benefit in that they can remove dust bunnies and other artifacts. The 'dust bunny' removal may not happen if you do what I did and take the flats weeks later but the gradients were certainly reduced. This made processing much much easier which is the whole point of flats. Long and short of it, if you forget or are unable to take flats at the optimal time, go ahead and try at a later date - the worst that can happen is it does not work...

Fig. 2 - No Flats

Fig. 3 - Using Flats created days after

North America & Pelican Nebulae (Baader Neodymium Filter Test)

Dates: 8-12-22
Camera: ZWO ASI2600MC-Pro
Telescope: Canon EF 200mm f/2.8L II USM Lens
Barlow: None
Focal Length: 200mm
f/4 with stepdown rings
Focal Reducer: None
Mount: iOptron SkyGuider Pro
Filter Wheel/Drawer: ZWO EOS Filter Drawer
Filter: Baader Neodymium (Moon & Skyglow) Filter
Focuser: None
Autoguiding: ASI120 Mini attached to a ZWO Mini 30/120mm Guidescope
Exposure: 45 x 120
Gain: 100
Sensor Temp: 0 C
Processing: ASIAIR Pro, PixInsight, Photoshop, StarXTerminator.
Power: BINZET AC to DC 12V 10A 120W Power Supply

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M16-M17 Region (Plate-Solve Test with ASIAIR & SkyGuider)

The most famous objects in this image are M16 (Eagle Nebula) and M17 (Omega Nebula) but several other objects are also in the field. Some of the other noteworthy objects visible are LBN 71 along with NGC 6604 and SH2-54 in the upper right portion. The left side has a lot of other nebular regions, some named, some unnamed. Numerous Sharpless objects, star clusters, and dark nebulae are scattered throughout this image.

The bad news is the stars were not as sharp as the focus was slightly off - my fault being in a hurry. The good news is Bill's Star reduction reduced the star problem quite a bit. The image is not great and I really did not spend a lot of time processing it since I did not have a lot of time on it, the light pollution was horrible in this direction, and the image was not the major focus of this project. The light pollution was so bad I could not make out any stars due to the light glow from Stamford and NYC. I was happy that I was getting something.

So how was I able to even find this given the sky conditions? Using the ASIAIR for Plate-solving. Plate-Solving is standard procedure for using go to mounts, it is less commonly used with tracking mounts such as the iOptron SkyGuider Pro which I was using. It actually worked quite well especially since Jacek Witkowski lent an extra set of hands (Thanks). I could have chosen an easier object that was actually visible to do this test with but I was at the offsite cemetery again and wanted to do something that is not visible very long from my yard.

M16-M17 Region (Plate-Solve Test with the Portable Setup)!
Dates: 8-13
Camera: ZWO ASI2600MC-Pro
Telescope: Canon EF 200mm f/2.8L II USM Lens
Barlow: None
Focal Length: 200mm
f/4 with stepdown rings
Focal Reducer: None
Mount: iOptron SkyGuider Pro
Filter Wheel/Drawer: ZWO EOS Filter Drawer
Filter: IDAS NBZ
Focuser: None
Autoguiding: ASI120 Mini attached to a ZWO Mini 30/120mm Guidescope
Exposure: 51 x 120
Gain: 100
Sensor Temp: 0 C
Processing: NINA, PixInsight, Photoshop, StarXTerminator.
Power: Maxoak K2 Laptop Power Bank

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M27 - Dumbbell Nebula (2022)

Messier 27 (a.k.a. M27) is a planetary nebula located 1200 light-years away in the constellation of Vulpecula and is approximately 5 light-years across. Its odd structure leads to interesting names such as the Apple Core Nebula or more commonly the Dumbbell Nebula. The structure of this object results from the expulsion of gas from a dying star and then having the remaining progenitor white dwarf star ionize the gas so it shines. This particular PN has a strong oxygen (OIII) component as evidenced by the blue-green regions. The red is due to hydrogen (Ha). The formation of the interesting shape is hard to picture because of our orientation, however, what is known is there is a bi-polar influence which is why it does not appear as a sphere like the nearby Ring Nebula.

I imaged this over seven nights at the end of July without any difficulties. Processing turned out quite fun as it is the first image where I processed it completely on my new processing computer. The speed of this new system is quite impressive. For example, it only took 1hr 10min to stack 372 exposures using WBPP where it would have taken approximately 6 hrs using the laptop. I made a video of the new system if you are interested (Link - https://youtu.be/SyyDdTT47WM).

This version was a big improvement over my previous attempts. For one thing I used my AT115 vs. the Orion ED80. It is still a small telescope so I had to crop it quite a bit but I captured more data than before. Another thing I did was use Bill Blanshan's new star reduction methods for PixInsight in processing. The methods worked surprisingly well as the stars were reduced with only a small amount of artifacts on large stars and I was able to fix those without too much effort.

 

M27 - Dumbbell Nebula (2022) 

Dates: 7-19-22, 7-20, 7-21, 7-22, 7-25, 7-26, 7-30
Camera: ZWO ASI1600MM-Pro
Telescope: Astro-Tech AT115EDT 115mm Refractor Telescope
Barlow: None
Focal Length: 805mm (644mm w/ FR)
f/7
Focal Reducer: 0.8x AstroTech Field Flatterner/Focal Reducer
Mount: Orion Sirius
Filter Wheel: ZWO EFW 8 x 1.25"
Filter: ZWO Ha, OIII, R, G, B
Focuser: ZWO EAF
Autoguiding: ASI120 Mini attached to an Agena 50mm Guide Scope/ZWO 60mm Guidescope
Exposure: Ha 85 x 300, OIII 85 x 300, R 74 x 60, G 71 x 60, B 57 x 60
Gain: 139
Offset 20
Sensor Temp: 0 C
Processing: NINA, PixInsight, Photoshop, Topaz DeNoiseAI, StarXTerminator.

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NGC 6888 - Crescent Nebula (2022)

NGC 6888 or the Crescent Nebula (a.k.a. Caldwell 27 or Sh2-105) is an emission nebula located in Cygnus approximately 5,000 light-years away. Its formation is the result from stellar wind from Wolf-Rayet Star, WR136 (HD192163), colliding with slower-moving earlier ejected particles from the star when it became a red giant. The turbulent swirling ionized gas is quite impressive and measures approximately 25 light-years across. The red color is due to the high concentration of hydrogen gas while the blue-green is indicative of oxygen gas.

This object is probably one of the top ten most imaged objects and I have imaged this three other times myself. However, they were captured with different equipment. This is my most detailed version yet which makes sense since it was with my largest focal length scope. I am very happy with the result and am once again surprised at how much Ha and OIII came through using the IDAS NBZ filter. I love the blue-green outer nebulosity and if you look closely you can see it is dispersed throughout the object. Also interesting is the dark globule known as "The Bullet" in the center near the bright star HD192163. When I first imaged this years ago I thought it was a piece of dirt on the sensor.

After imaging this I broke down this rig as I was having intermittent technical difficulties between the ASIAIR Pro and EAF. The ASIAIR would not read the EAF when starting up. Thinking it was the cables I went through four sets before determining that was not it. I contacted ZWO and have to say they were quite responsive in particular, TJ Connelly. Long and short, I ended up sending both items to New Jersey and they had to replace the EAF motor - very happy with the service.

NGC 6888 - Crescent Nebula 
Dates: 6-29, 6-30
Camera: ZWO ASI294MC-Pro
Telescope: Celestron EdgeHD 800
Barlow: None
Focal Length: 2032mm (native), 1400mm
F/10 (native), F/7
Focal Reducer: Celestron 0.7 Reducer Lens
Mount: Orion Atlas Pro
Filter Adaptor: ZWO Filter Drawer
Filter: IDAS NBZ (2-inch)
Focuser: ZWO EAF
Autoguiding: ASI120 Mini attached to an Orion ST80
Exposure: Lum 175 x 180
Gain: 139
Offset 0
Temp: 0 C
Processing: Asiair app, PixInsight, Photoshop, StarXTerminator, Topaz DeNoiseAI.

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