NGC 1333 is a reflection nebula located in the northern constellation Perseus. It is positioned next to the southern constellation border with Taurus and Aries. This nebula is in the western part of the Perseus molecular cloud. It is a young region with very active star formation.
This is a bright but small object surrounded by thick interstellar dust clouds. Some of these clouds are so thick that they completely hide the light behind them. NGC 1333 is commonly referred to as the Embryo Nebula, or the Phantom Tiara.
Session management and acquisition control by APT. Processed manually in PixInsight. Astrobin link for acquisition details and annotated contents.
LBN 646 is a part of the Fish Head Nebula (IC 1795). It is a star-forming region about 6,000 light-years away in the constellation Cassiopeia. It is adjacent to the larger Heart Nebula (IC 1805).
This region is known for the bright NGC 896. It contains young, hot stars that excite the surrounding gas and cause it to glow. The bright region NGC 896 is rich with young, massive stars. These stars emit strong ultraviolet light. This ultraviolet light causes the surrounding gas to become luminous.
The entire complex of star-forming regions, including LBN 646, is about 70 light-years across.
Image acquisition was controlled by APT using an RC8 telescope with an ASI071MC camera atop an Eq6r Pro mount. The radian Ultra Quad-band filter was used in acquiring the 541 300s subs. Subs processed manually in PixInsight. In processing, I stayed true to the natural Hii color. I made a very slight enhancement in the SHO palette. This approach avoided the false blue/yellow colors. Astrobin link for acquisition details.
WR 134 is a variable Wolf-Rayet star located about 6,000 light-years away in the constellation of Cygnus. This star is bright and massive. It has a radius that is five times greater than our own Sun’s radius. Its temperature is 63,000K, making it 400,000 times more luminous! It is surrounded by a faint bubble nebula formed by this star’s intense radiation and solar wind.
I imaged his target in mid-Oct 2025. 170 5 minute subs or approx. 14 hrs. Cloudy nights prevented an earlier start on this target. These few nights I was imaging post-meridian flip. I was impressed by the intensity and density of the starfield. Limited time per session. Target acquisition control using APT. Imaged with an Esprit 120ED and ASI2600MC atop an Eq6r Pro mount. Processed manually in PixInsight using a natural color palette.
Sh2-154 is a large emission nebula in the constellation Cepheus, located approximately 3,260 light-years away, within a star-forming region. It is cataloged in the Sharpless catalog. This nebula is noted for being a faint, but sizable, region of double-ionized hydrogen. It is surrounded by dust. The giant B-type star (LS III +60 28) is responsible for ionizing the nebula.
Sh2-154 is situated in the same larger star-forming complex as the more famous Cave Nebula, also known as Sh2-155. It is often pictured alongside Sh2-155 in wide-field astrophotography. The ionizing radiation from (LS III +60 28) may be compressing nearby molecular clouds. This action could potentially trigger the birth of new stars. The open cluster NGC 7419 is located close to Sh2-154. Because Sh2-154 is an emission nebula, it appears mostly red in images and is effectively captured using a hydrogen-alpha filter.
I use APT for image acquisition control and automation. The Skywatcher Esprit 120ED f7 840mm fl telescope was paired with the ZWO ASI2600MC camera. It was atop an Eq6r Pro mount. Together, they collected the 151 5 minute light frames over three nights in Sept 2025. I used PixInsight to create and process the image. Astrobin link for acquisition details.
SH2-158 is also known as the Northern Lagoon Nebula or NGC 7538. It is an active star-forming H II region in the constellation Cepheus. This nebula is located about 9,100 light-years away. It is home to massive young stars and protostars. It includes one exceptionally large O-type protostar. It is part of the Cassiopeia OB2 complex in the Perseus Arm of the Milky Way.
Sh2-158 is often overlooked by amateur astrophotographers due to its proximity to the larger and more famous Bubble Nebula. However, it is a challenging and rewarding target. I was intrigued by the name alone. I have imaged the Lagoon Nebula and hadn’t heard of the Northern Lagoon Nebula. A quick search led to a few examples but not many, so I set my sights on the target.
Sh2-158 is an active star-forming region embedded within a large molecular cloud. As an emission nebula, Sh2-158 glows. However, its light is spread out over a large area. This distribution makes its surface brightness very low. Long total exposure times are needed. Often, multiple hours are required to gather enough light. These times help distinguish the nebula from the sky’s background noise. The surrounding dust clouds absorb and scatter light, further diminishing the nebula’s brightness and obscuring fine details within it. This makes revealing the nebula’s structure challenging and requires advanced processing techniques. The dust also causes reddening, altering the color balance of images and requiring careful calibration during post-processing.
I imaged it over the course of three nights in Sept 2025. I used a RC8 telescope at 1625 mm paired with an AI071MC camera atop an Eq6r Pro mount. I used a Radian Ultra Quadband filter.
Sh2-86 is a faint emission nebula in the constellation Vulpecula, located approximately 6,000 light-years from Earth. It contains the young, hot open star cluster NGC 6823. This cluster illuminates the surrounding nebula. It gives the nebula its distinctive shape.
The nebula has “pillar-like” structures. These structures are similar to “elephant trunks.” It also has Bok globules. These globules are denser regions of gas shielded from the intense radiation of the young stars.
This image consists of 81 exposures. Each exposure was 5 minutes long. They were taken from my driveway with an Esprit 120ED telescope and ZWO ASI2600MC camera. Image acquisition using APT. Image processed manually in PixInsight. Acquisition details in this astrobin link.
NGC 6229 is a globular cluster located in the constellation Hercules. NGC 6229 is located at about 100,000 light years away from Earth. It is an intermediate-metallicity globular cluster. It has two distinct generations of stars. It may be the remnant core of a spheroidal dwarf galaxy.
This galaxy season I wanted to touch on a few galaxy clusters. I’ve photographed the Leo Triplet before but never the Leo Quartet. The NGC 3190 group is also known as Hickson 44 or Arp 316. It is a compact group of galaxies located in the constellation Leo. The galaxies are about 100 million light-years from earth.
NGC 3190: A spiral galaxy with a prominent dust lane, viewed nearly edge-on. NGC 3193: An elliptical galaxy, appearing as a relatively featureless glow. NGC 3187: A barred spiral galaxy with distorted, S-shaped arms, giving it a peculiar appearance. NGC 3185: A barred spiral galaxy with a ring-like outer structure.
Image capture using APT 4.6, Image processing with PixInsight.
The Black Eye Galaxy is also called Sleeping Beauty Galaxy or Evil Eye Galaxy. It is designated Messier 64, M 64, or NGC 4826. It is a relatively isolated spiral galaxy 17 million light-years away in the mildly northern constellation of Coma Berenice’s.
Messier 64 (M64) has a spectacular dark band of absorbing dust in front of the galaxy’s bright nucleus. This feature gives rise to its nicknames, the “Black Eye” or “Evil Eye” galaxy.
I photographed this galaxy for over 12 hours from my driveway in March 2025.
Messier 67 is also known as M67 or NGC 2682. It is sometimes called the King Cobra Cluster or the Golden Eye Cluster. It is an open cluster in the southern, equatorial half of Cancer. Estimates of its age range between 3.2 and 5 billion years. Distance estimates are likewise varied, but typically are 2,600 – 2,900 ly.
M67 is not the oldest known open cluster. Several Milky Way clusters are known to be older. However, they are farther than M 67. It is a paradigm study object in stellar evolution. It is well-populated and has negligible amounts of dust obscuration. All its stars are at the same distance and age, except for approximately 30 anomalous blue stragglers.
It has more than 100 stars similar to the Sun, and numerous red giants. The total star count has been estimated at well over 500.
