Sh2-223, Sh2-224, Sh2-225, Sh2-227 & Friends (HOO)

The object that drew me to image this region was Sh2-224, the red wedge-shaped nebula with blue edges on the top and bottom. The nebula is located some 12,000 light-years away in the constellation Auriga and is very large at 150 light-years. The presence of hydrogen (HII) and oxygen (OIII) are characteristic of a supernova event although no progenitor star has been located. If this is a Supernova Remnant (SNR), the explosion took place approximately 60,000 years ago.

Sh2-223 sits very close to Sh2-224 and was also thought to be a SNR, however, more recent studies indicate that it is a HII emission nebula energized by a nearby star - this nebula is a bit closer to us at 7,000 light-years. Sh2-225 is also a HII emission nebula and is located about 12,000 light-years away. Another claim to fame for this nebula is that it contains a protostar designated as IRAS 05235+4033. Small but distinct, Sh2-227, is another HII nebula 80 light-years across and at a distance of 14,000 light-years.

All of these nebulae are very faint and sit in a dense but colorful starfield. An open cluster, NGC 1857, is just to the left of Sh2-227 and consists of ~40 stars. I did this project with my widefield setup which is built around a 200mm camera lens and the ZWO ASI2600MC but it would definitely be worthwhile to go back with more focal length. A fast system such as a RASA would be optimal for any of these targets since they are so dim. Using the IDAS NBZ filter which singles out HII and OIII, HII was the major component and only Sh2-224 had a clearly distinct OIII component, however, there were hints that there may be a small amount of OIII in some of the other nebulae - Sh2-227 in particular.

I planned to obtain more data but the weather gods and moon put the kibosh on that. Processing this image was very difficult because these objects were so faint. I had to do a lot of tedious processing gymnastics to isolate the nebula and even before normal processing my stacked subs had a weird gradient that DBE and GradientX could not totally fix so I had to play with that first. I separated the RGB channels to make a synthetic HOO image by using red for Ha and a combination of 70% green + 30% blue for the OIII. Lastly, there was some update by the ASIAIR where my normal gain of 100 was reset to gain 50 unbeknownst to me so I had to make a new set support frames.

https://www.instagram.com/astroquest1/
http://astroquest1.blogspot.com/
https://www.astrobin.com/users/kurtzepp/collections/
http://youtube.com/AstroQuest1

Sh2-223, Sh2-224, Sh2-225, Sh2-227 & Friends (HOO)

Dates: 11-28, 30, 12-13, 19, 20, 29 
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: Orion Atlas 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: 276 x 300
Gain: 50
Sensor Temp: -10 C
Processing: ASIAIR Pro, PixInsight, Photoshop, StarXTerminator, NoiseXTerminator, GHS, GradientXTerminator, BTX.
Power: BINZET AC to DC 12V 10A 120W Power Supply

https://www.instagram.com/astroquest1/
http://astroquest1.blogspot.com/
https://www.astrobin.com/users/kurtzepp/collections/
http://youtube.com/AstroQuest1

LBN 777 - The Baby Eagle Nebula

LBN 777 is a dark and dusty reflection nebula and part of the Taurus Molecular Cloud located about 400 light years away. Molecular clouds are made of diffuse cosmic dust and molecular gas. It is also known as Baby Eagle or Vulture Head Nebula. It is close to the very bright and popular Pleiades Star Cluster (~ 4 degrees) which may be why LBN 777 is much less imaged. Nearby stars are responsible for illuminating this very impressive dense cloud. Gravitational attractions cause some of the parts to form into small dense parts known as bok globules. The friction leads to an increase in temperature and protostars are able to form. In this Nebula the more dense inner part is quite dark and cataloged as Barnard 207 - this is the region where it is presumed that new stars are born.

In addition to all of the nebulosity, I really like the colorful star field and also the 'small' galaxies scattered throughout. They show surprisingly good structure which was a pleasant surprise. For processing I used BTX, GHS, and NoiseX which are new additions to my routine. I still do most of the other stuff as well except for Topaz Denoise which I have cut back on - NoiseX seems to be doing a much better job. Capturing was pretty much a breeze since I was using the shed for this object so I just turned it on for the few hours that it was visible when the moon was not out and then just turned it off (it may have looked hard since it took 11 sessions over a 1.5 months). I could have gone to another but I already have too much stuff on the plate plus I still have a backlog of images that need processing, maybe when I retire I will be more efficient. One last thing, although I do some enhancement of the dust color, it is pretty much what is there so the dust has a more brown tint as does LBN 644 (Drunken Dragon Nebula), however, when I did LBN 644 a couple of months ago the natural color was more gray so I went with it. I just think it is kind of interesting how the dust appears.

 

Dates: 11-2, 19, 20, 21, 22, 28, 30, 12-1, 12, 13, 14, 18

LBN777 - The Baby Eagle Nebula (2023)
Dates: 11-2, 19, 20, 21, 22, 28, 30, 12-1, 12, 13, 14, 18
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 L, R, G, B
Focuser: ZWO EAF
Autoguiding: ASI120 Mini attached to an Agena 50mm Guide Scope/ZWO 60mm Guidescope
Exposure: L 384 x 120, R 141 x 90, G 145 x 90, B 135 x 90
Gain: 139
Offset 20
Sensor Temp: -10 C
Processing: NINA, PixInsight, Photoshop, BlurXTerminator, StarXTerminator, NoiseXTerminator.

https://www.instagram.com/astroquest1/
http://astroquest1.blogspot.com/
https://www.astrobin.com/users/kurtzepp/collections/
http://youtube.com/AstroQuest1