Sh2-282 (Sharpless 282) is a very faint Hii emission nebula in the constellation Monoceros. It is approximately 4,075 to 5,000 light-years away from Earth. It belongs to the second Sharpless catalog. It is situated in the north-central part of its constellation. The nebula is roughly 3° south of the famous Rosette Nebula.
The nebula is characterized by red hydrogen gas energized by radiation from nearby bright blue stars. It spans approximately 40 light-years in diameter. In apparent view, that’s 35 arc-minutes. The nebula contains eight cometary globules. These are dense, eroded pillars of gas and dust that are sculpted by stellar winds.
Sh2-223 is a faint emission nebula (H II region) located in a dense starfield in the constellation Auriga. It is a huge H II region, a large cloud of partially ionized gas where star formation can occur. It appears as a large, faint red arc or “wing” in deep-sky images. Its red glow comes from ionized hydrogen-alpha (Hα) emissions. The nebula is believed to be ionized by the star BD +41 1144 (an O7.5 V star) or possibly LS V +40 46.
In addition to the predominant Hii, there is also a significant amount of Oiii in the area. This leads to a bluish tinge or a slight purplish hue in parts of the image.
It is considered a difficult target for astrophotographers because of its extreme faintness. It often requires long total integration times, such as 25+ hours, to resolve clearly. Separating the IFN from the Hii nebula requires data. This photograph is only 11.4 hours. More to come in the future if the opportunity presents itself.
NGC 1999 is a bright reflection nebula in the Orion constellation, located about 1,500 light-years away near the Orion Nebula. Illuminated by the variable star V380 Orionis, it features a distinctive, T-shaped dark void in its center. Once thought to be a dust cloud, this “cosmic keyhole” is actually a hole in the nebula. Energetic stellar winds likely caused this hole. It is also called the “Rubber Stamp” nebula. This name is for those familiar with the use of stamps for marking items.
The nebula is part of the remnants of star formation, surrounded by a network of dusty filaments. It is often observed alongside Herbig-Haro objects, which are small, glowing patches of gas associated with newly formed stars.
The “Keyhole” Void: The most distinctive feature is a dark, T-shaped patch at its center. The region was long thought to be a dense Bok globule. A Bok globule is a cold cloud of dust and gas that blocks light. However, 2010 observations from the Herschel Space Observatory revealed it is actually an empty region of space. It is a literal hole in the nebula.
It is part of the Orion Molecular Cloud Complex and is located just south of the famous Orion Nebula (M42). The region is rich in Herbig-Haro (HH) objects, which are luminous shock waves created by jets from newborn stars. The entire field of view is but a tiny portion of the massive Orion molecular cloud (the Orion A Cloud). A surprise for me is the amount of Oiii in the region. The blue hues highlight its presence.
Session management and automation with APT. I Captured 262 subframes with 180s exposure each. This amounts to about 13 hours of exposure from my driveway. I used an RC8 telescope and an ASI071MC Pro camera cooled to 14f.
vdB 30 is a very faint reflection nebula located in the northern constellation Camelopardalis. This nebula is part of the van den Bergh (vdB) catalog of reflection nebulae. Astronomer Sidney van den Bergh originally published the catalog in 1966.
It is primarily a reflection nebula, meaning it consists of interstellar dust that reflects the light of nearby stars. The nebula surrounds the bright star Alpha Camelopardalis. Because this star is quite brilliant (magnitude ~4.3), the faint nebulosity can be difficult to capture and is often overwhelmed by the star’s glare. While categorized as a reflection nebula, it is rich in ionized hydrogen (HII) and some sulfur.
Modern narrowband imaging often reveals a bow shock in the gas. These are visible as curved structures in hydrogen-alpha (Ha) light. This phenomenon is caused by the star moving through the interstellar medium. It is estimated to be approximately 5,000 light-years away from Earth.
vdB 30 is considered a very faint and challenging target for amateur astronomers. It requires long exposure times (often 5 to 10+ hours) to detect the subtle dust and gas structures. Its coordinates place it at a high northern declination (+66 degrees), making it a circumpolar object for many observers in the Northern Hemisphere.
VdB 30 is a reflection nebula in the constellation Camelopardalis. It is a very extensive gas cloud. Observing it is difficult due to the low amount of light reflected and its relatively low temperature. It appears to surround the star α Camelopardalis. This star is located in the centre of the image. It is a blue supergiant from apparent magnitude 4.26 and spectral class O9Ia. The cloud extends for about 29 parsecs. It is composed of cold dust. The dust emits infrared radiation due to the weak heating received from the supergiant. The emissions from the supergiant are especially ultraviolet because of its surface temperature equal to 30,000 Kelvin.
The nebula has a ring shape. It is impressed by the strong stellar wind of the supergiant. This wind is responsible for creating a bubble in the interstellar medium surrounding it. As a result, it disperses the cloud itself.
I photographed this difficult target from my driveway in the foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains in Burke County, NC. I use APT for image acquisition and session automation to capture 159 5 minute exposures across 4 nights. Subframes calibrated, debayered, aligned, integrated, and processed in PixInsight 1.9.3
Sh2-238, also widely known as Hind’s Variable Nebula or NGC 1555, is a reflection nebula located in the constellation Taurus. It is renowned for its fluctuating brightness. These changes occur based on the activity of its illuminating star, the young variable star T Tauri. It is primarily a reflection nebula. It is also classified as a Herbig-Haro object (HH 155). These are bright patches of nebulosity associated with newly born stars.
The nebula’s appearance and luminosity change over time. This is not only due to the variable light output of T Tauri. It is also because moving dust clouds between the star and the nebula cast shifting shadows. Sh2-238 is a challenging target for amateur astronomers and astrophotographers. It remains popular due to the intricate dust structures. The yellow-orange hues of the surrounding interstellar material add to its appeal.
I photographed this nebula from my driveway in the hills of Burke County, NC. Using APT for image acquisition and session automation I collected 185 5 minute exposures over the course of three nights. Telescope – GSO RC8 at 1625mm focal length, ZWO ASI071MC Pro camera cooled to 14f, Mount – Skywatcher EQ6r Pro. The 185 subframes were calibrated, debayered, aligned, integrated, and processed using PixInsight 1.9.3
Perhaps among the most beautiful targets to image in our night sky. There are no less than five reflection nebulae in the photograph. They are contrasted by large areas of ionized hydrogen showing as red in the image.
IC 2169, popularly known as Dreyer’s Nebula, is a large blue reflection nebula located in the constellation Monoceros (the Unicorn). It is a primary feature of the Monoceros R1 complex. This is a region of active star formation situated approximately 2,500 to 2,700 light-years away from Earth. It’s in a massive starfield!
The nebula has a distinctive blue hue. This color occurs as interstellar dust particles scatter blue light from nearby hot, young stars. It is primarily illuminated by the massive B-type stars of the young open cluster Collinder 95. Some sources also associate its glow with the variable star T Orionis or the star HD 45677.
The Nebula is often referred to as Dreyer’s Nebula. This name honors John Dreyer, who compiled the NGC and IC catalogs. However, it was actually discovered by Barnard. The nebula is also designated as IC 447. This duplication exists because it was recorded twice in the Index Catalogue (IC) due to separate observations by Edward Barnard. It is located about 2 degrees west of the more famous Cone Nebula and the Christmas Tree Cluster (NGC 2264). It is often imaged alongside smaller reflection nebulae such as IC 446, NGC 2245, and NGC 2247.
I took this photograph from my driveway in the foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains in western North Carolina. Here, I enjoy a bortle 4/5 sky. Continued development pushes it ever closer to a 5. Imaged with a Skywatcher Esprit 120ED telescope at 840mm focal length and a ZWO ASI2600MC camera cooled to 14f. These are mounted on a Skywatcher Eq6r Pro equatorial mount. It runs EQMOD and guides via PHD2. This is done through a ZWO OAG and an ASI290mm mini guide camera.
Component control is done by APT. Session automation and image acquisition are also managed by APT. These are the magic dust in getting the 143 5 minute subframes. The subframes were manually calibrated, debayered, aligned, integrated, and processed to the targets natural colors using PixInsight.
Messier 35 (M35) is the only Messier object in the constellation Gemini. It is also called NGC 2168 or the Shoe Buckle Cluster. M35 is a relatively young open cluster of stars about 150 million years old.
Open clusters are groupings of stars that are loosely gravitationally bound. They tend to form from the same cloud of gas and dust. Their stars share characteristics like age and chemical composition. This can be helpful for studying how stars form and evolve. Over time, tidal forces within a host galaxy may be very strong. They may overwhelm an open clusters’ gravitational pull. As a result, its stars may disperse into the galaxy.
M35 is large. On very dark nights, it can be seen as a fuzzy object with the unaided eye. In binoculars, it appears as a haze with some resolvable stars. Through a telescope, it reveals a grouping of bright stars.
Located near Castor’s right foot in Gemini, it is best seen in the winter months in the Northern Hemisphere. A smaller and more compact neighboring open cluster, NGC 2158, may also be visible. It is within nearly the same field of view. It is located at the bottom center of my photograph.
The first thing that struck me was the vast number of stars. I noticed them as I began to see this image unfold in the illuminated sky. Varying temperatures are seen in the gases with hot Hydrogen gases glowing in reddish hues with cooler gases expanding outward.
IC 2177 is a region of nebulosity that lies along the border between the constellations Monoceros and Canis Major. The name Seagull Nebula is sometimes applied by astronomers to this emission region. It resembles a gull in flight. It also includes the neighboring regions of star clusters, dust clouds, and reflection nebulae.
Astronomers catalog the nebula as IC 2177. This cosmic cloud is one of many sites of star formation within the Milky Way galaxy. It is located 3,800 light-years away from Earth. It resides inside the Orion spur. This is the same partial spiral arm of the Milky Way where our solar system is located. The nebula is nearly 240 light-years across.
NGC 2327 is located in IC 2177. It is also known as the Seagull’s Head, due to its larger presence in the Seagull nebula. The region near the seagull’s eye (or lizard’s hip) is listed as NGC 2327 by astronomers. It contains a cluster of stars born about 1.5 million years ago. The eye is the brightest and hottest of the newborn stars in the entire nebula. It heats up the dust. Consequently, the dust glows in infrared light.
The complex of gas and dust clouds is dominated by the reddish glow of atomic hydrogen. It spans over 100 light-years. Bright young stars are within it at an estimated distance of 3,800 light-years.
NGC 247 (also known as Caldwell 62) is an intermediate spiral galaxy located approximately 11.1 million light-years away in the constellation Cetus. It is a prominent member of the Sculptor Group, one of the closest galaxy clusters to our own Local Group. At a dec of -20, it’s as far south as I can image. I do this from my driveway here in the forest of western North Carolina.
The “Needle’s Eye” / “Claw” Galaxy: It has an unusual nickname. It’s called the “Needle’s Eye” because of an unusually large void or “hole” on one side of its spiral disk. This region contains older, redder stars. It lacks younger, bluer stars. This indicates that star formation there stopped about a billion years ago. Spanning about 70,000 light-years in diameter, it is smaller than the Milky Way and is viewed nearly edge-on from Earth.
Burbidge’s Chain: In deep images, a striking string of four distant background galaxies is visible. They are roughly 300 million light-years away. This string is located just to the north-east of NGC 247. These were a bonus I found in my image as I was processing it. I never saw them in the faint subframes. The difference between 11 million and 300 million light-years.
Astronomers speculate the galaxy’s distinctive void may have been caused by gravitational interaction with a “dark subhalo.” Another possibility is that another galaxy passed through its disk. While the void is quiet, the rest of the disk features bright pink H II regions. These are knots of glowing hydrogen gas where new stars are actively forming.
vdB 13 is a bluish reflection nebula cataloged in Sydney van den Bergh’s 1966 VdB Catalogue of 159 reflection nebulae.
Situated approximately 1,000 light-years away in the constellation Aries (at the northeast corner). It is part of the western edge of the Perseus Molecular Cloud.
The nebula is illuminated by the star HIP 15984, a blue star of spectral type B8. It has an apparent magnitude of approximately 8.25.
VDB 13 is surrounded by dust and a dark nebula structure. The dusty blue reflection nebula shines prominently through the darkness. It is these dark lanes that provide the contrast and thus the eerie beauty within the image.
