M97-M108 & many more

This is my latest version of M97 & M108, two different types of Messier objects in one field of view. M97 (also known as the Owl Nebula or NGC 3587) is a planetary nebula located 2000 light-years away in the constellation of Ursa Major. The nebula appears blue due the presence of oxygen gas, however, there is some hydrogen around the rim appearing red in color. The nebula formed approximately 8,000 years ago when the central star began to blow its outer layers away and is currently 2 light-years in diameter. Interestingly, a faint outer halo of oxygen was detected in 1991 and I managed to capture it in this image thanks to collecting over three hours of OIII data.

​M108 (also known as the Surfboard galaxy or NGC 3556) is located approximately 46 million light-years away. At 75 degrees inclination to our line of sight, it is almost edge-on and resembles a Surfboard to some people through a telescope. It has thick dust lanes throughout the disk with blue star clusters and pink Ha regions in the outer arms. I collected over four hours of Ha data which brought out many of these pink regions.

In addition to these main objects, there are many other galaxies in this image. Using PixInsight's annotation feature I counted 120 identified galaxies but there are probably more - many of the 'dots' are not stars but galaxies.

Processing was straightforward except I only blended the Ha data into M108 and the OIII into M97 and only to get the faint outer rim. The dense portion on M97 is straight RGB as it gives the best definition and color in my opinion.

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M97-M108 & many more 
Dates: 12-30-24, 1-1-25, 1-2, 1-3, 1-4, 1-23

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: Antlia Ha; ZWO R, G, B, UV
Focuser: ZWO EAF
Autoguiding: ASI120 Mini attached to an Agena 50mm Guide Scope/ZWO 60mm Guidescope
Exposure: Ha 54 x 300, OIII 37 x 300, R 43 x 90, G 42 x 90, B 45 x 90 (10h 50')
Gain: 139
Offset 20
Sensor Temp: -20 C
Processing: NINA, PixInsight, Photoshop, BlurXTerminator, StarXTerminator, NoiseXTerminator, GraXpert, Bill Blanshan Stretching.

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NGC 1999

The highlight of this image is the tiny bright reflection nebula, NGC 1999 located in the middle of my image. It is around 1,350 light-years away in the constellation of Orion and is just south of the famous Orion Nebula. The nebula shines not because it is producing its own light but rather from reflected light from the star, V380 Orionis - the star shines on dust in the Orion A Giant Molecular Cloud. The dark area in the center resembling a keyhole was originally thought to be a dark nebula or Bok globule, however, recent studies indicate that it is an empty space which is still quite interesting.

The rest of this region is filled with faint hydrogen gas in addition to the dust from the molecular cloud. It is much less bright than the nearby Orion Nebula but still shows quite a bit of radiating flow structure. There are also many other features in the field such as Herbig-Haro (HH) objects which are objects associated with newborn stars and other reflection nebulae such as IC 430.

This was one of the most challenging objects in capturing and processing. The Readers' Digest version of difficulties follow. When imaging LRGB between 12-30-24 and 1-4-25 streaks appeared in most of the 90 second exposures taken over a couple of hours each day - it was as if an armada of satellites were passing by over a couple of hours on a certain trajectory over several nights. I was able to process them out in PS. Speaking of processing, I spent a few days almost ready to post the results only to start over from scratch. The original was more dependent on the luminosity data. The luminosity did bring out some interesting detail in certain regions that was different from what the Ha brought out, however, it degraded an even larger portion of the image. Ultimately the reason for the degradation is the same reason I do not image nearby NGC 1909, the Witch Head Nebula, the light pollution to the south is noticeably worse especially at lower altitudes.

Hydrogen looked really good as it was unaffected by the poor sky conditions. I did numerous blends in the red channel, luminosity channel, and additional blend. I also blended some of the LRGB portions from the original processed image into this version. I was having trouble with adjusting the red color so I asked my wife for assistance - I like the resulting deep red color.

Dates: 12-30-24, 1-1-25, 1-2, 1-3, 1-4, 1-15, 1-17, 1-20, 1-23

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NGC 1999 (2025)
Dates: 12-30-24, 1-1-25, 1-2, 1-3, 1-4, 1-15, 1-17, 1-20, 1-23

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: Antlia Ha; ZWO R, G, B, UV
Focuser: ZWO EAF
Autoguiding: ASI120 Mini attached to an Agena 50mm Guide Scope/ZWO 60mm Guidescope
Exposure: Ha 67 x 300, UV 141 x 90, R 53 x 90, G 43 x 90, B 66 x 90 (13h 9')
Gain: 139
Offset 20
Sensor Temp: -20 C
Processing: NINA, PixInsight, Photoshop, BlurXTerminator, StarXTerminator, NoiseXTerminator, GraXpert, Bill Blanshan Stretching.

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The Pleiades - M45 w/ H-alpha (2024)

This is my latest image of Messier 45, The Pleiades Cluster (Seven Sisters), in the constellation Taurus. Lying 444 light-years away it contains over 1,000 stars loosely bound by gravity however only few of the brightest ones give it its fame. The blue reflection nebula around the star cluster is a result of the cluster just passing through a gigantic dust cloud.

For this project I decided to use my 300mm Askar telescope combined with the ZWO ASI2600MC camera to get a wider field of view than previous attempts. In addition I went after some of the faint hydrogen surrounding the cluster with my IDAS NBZ dual band filter. The dual band filter picks up Hydrogen (Ha) at 656.3nm and Oxygen (OIII) at 495.9nm (& 500.7nm) with a bandwidth of 12nm for both Ha and OIII. The newer IDAS NBZ-II has a bandwidth of 10nm for Ha and 8nm for OIII which narrows the light band thus filtering more of the undesired light (i.e. better). Surprisingly the stacked image using the NBZ filter was not too different from the straight color image without any additional filter other than the built in camera UV/IR. I believe the 12nm bandwidth for the OIII was enough to overlap with the normal reflection color - sometimes a wider bandwidth has an advantage.

For this image, however, I separeted NBZ image into indivual RGB channels and only used the red channel data which is actually the Ha. I then blended that into the normal color image to make this HaRGB image. Of course I wanted to collect more data but obtaining it was a bit difficult with crazy weather. We did have some clear nights but the best ones seemed to be when the moon was out. It is OK to image with narrowband filters when the moon is out using the general rule of thumb: farther than 60° for Ha and 120° for OIII. The problem with M45 was that the moon not only was within 60° of M45, it was directly in front of it.

High Resolution:
https://www.astrobin.com/2ld9ky/?nc=collection&nce=712

Dates: 11-26-24, 12-1, 12-2, 12-3, 12-8, 12-26

The Pleiades - M45 w/ H-alpha (2024)
Dates: 11-26-24, 12-1, 12-2, 12-3, 12-8, 12-26
Camera: ZWO ASI2600MC Pro
Telescope: Askar FRA300 Pro
Barlow: None
Focal Length: 300mm
F/5
Focal Reducer: None
Mount: ZWO AM3
Filter Adaptor: ZWO Filter Drawer
Filter: IDAS NBZ, Camera UV-IR
Focuser: ZWO EAF
Autoguiding: ASI120 Mini attached to a ZWO Mini guidescope
Exposure: UV-IR 575 x 90 (14h 22'), NBZ 190 x 300 (15h 50'), Total (30h 12')
Gain: 100
Offset 0
Temp: -10 C
Processing: Asiair app, PixInsight, Photoshop, BlurXT, NoiseXT, StarX, Bill's Color Masks, Bill's Star Reduction, Bill's Stretching, Topaz Denoise, GraXpert

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