universe – Page 4 – Semper Iuvenis Photography

Sh2-216 – Planetary Nebula

This is Sh2-216. It is a planetary nebula in the constellation Perseus. Planetary nebulae get their name because they are generally spherical. In the crude telescopes of centuries past, they appeared similar to the much closer planets of our own solar system. The astronomers of old did not realize the scale of our galaxy. They assumed these nebulae might be similar to our planetary brothers. This led to their name.

These objects are remnants of a stage in the death of larger stars. During this stage, stars convulse and blow off their outer layers of material into space. In the case of Sh2-216, the stellar explosion occurred some half million years ago. It left behind the core of the progenitor star, a white dwarf. There is also a slowly expanding cloud of mostly ionized hydrogen.

This particular object is the closest planetary nebula to us at only 400 light years distance. It’s proximity also makes it the largest in apparent diameter at 1.6 degrees – over three times that of our Moon. But it is very FAINT! The expanding hydrogen gas is extremely thin, requiring long exposure photography to show it. It is completely invisible to the naked eye, and isn’t visible in a single five minute camera exposure. This is a stack of 222 5 minute exposures, or 18.5 hours.

It won’t fit in my 860 mm Fl Esprit 120ED due to its size. Therefore, I focused on a bright outer band of gas. Image acquisition using APT 4.60. Processed manually in PI.

Astrobin – https://astrob.in/qwvo2i/0

Sh2-302 – Snowman Nebula

Sh2-302, also known as the Snowman Nebula, is an ionized hydrogen (Hii) emission nebula. It is located in the constellation Puppis. It is about 5,800 light years away. Also designated as LBN 1046, this object is classified as an emission nebula because it contains ionized hydrogen. It’s part of the Gum Nebula, which occupies the lower southern skies in our winter. The nebula has a visual diameter of 15 arc minutes. It is located near the boundary between Puppis and Canis Major.

Sh2-302 is one of many objects in a catalog compiled by astronomer Stewart Sharpless to identify areas of interstellar ionized hydrogen, or HII regions. I’ve enjoyed imaging items from this catalog over the fall/winter months as we await galaxy season.

A dark band crosses it on the southeast side. It is part of a molecular nebulous complex located at the outer edge of the Orion Arm. This complex is about 1800 parsecs (about 5900 light-years) away. Sh2-302 contains a molecular bipolar jet in its interior. A very massive protostar probably generates this jet. It originated from the impact between the ionized region and the surrounding molecular cloud.

Other star-forming phenomena are witnessed by the presence of the small open cluster NGC 2409, which size is just 0.1 parsecs, formed by twenty stars and located a short distance from the IRAS source. On the eastern edge of the nebula, a small part of the dust is illuminated by a star of the tenth magnitude. This forms the reflection nebula cataloged as vdB 97.

I captured this photograph from my driveway using a Skywatcher Esprit 120ED telescope at a fl of 840mm and a ZWO ASI2600MC Pro astrophotography camera. These are mounted on a Skywatcher EQ6r Pro German Equatorial Mount. The image acquisition software I used to control everything is APT 4.60 (Astro Photography Tool). Total exposure of 13 hrs. 75 exposures were integrated and processed using Pixinsight.

Sh2-313 in Hydra

This is a VERY dim nebula in the constellation Hydra. With a declination of -23, it skirts the tree line in my southern forest view. This made for difficulty shooting as the atmosphere is thick and guiding difficult.

I find the challenge worth it as Planetary Nebula have a unique beauty about them. This one is a binary pair of white dwarfs in a tight orbit. It has a strong blue and green area in the middle with a nice other shell you see in red.

I captured this image over the course of eight nights from 12/21/2024 to 01/16/2025. I used Astrophotography Tool (APT) for session control. I then processed it manually in PixInsight. I used a Skywatcher Esprit 120ED f7 telescope at 860mm. The setup included a ASI2600MC color camera cooled to 15f. This was mounted atop a Skywatcher Eq6r Pro mount.

Sh2-212 – The Tribbles

NGC 1624, also known as Sh2-212 in the Sharpless catalog, is a very young open cluster. It is located in the constellation Perseus inside an emission nebula. Sh2-212 is the large Hii ball of emission nebula on the right side of my photograph. Sh2-211 is the smaller ball of gas on the left. Together they are known as the Tribbles, I assume from StarTrek lore – “Spock: “Most curious creature, Captain. Its trilling seems to have a tranquilizing effect on the human nervous system.”” – Star Trek “Trouble with Tribbles”

SH2-212 is ~20,000 light-years away. Latest estimates put it very young at only 4 million years old. SH2-211 is embedded in the same CO cloud. It is around the same distance and age. In the image, there are also beautiful dark and light dust lanes and a handful of galaxies. A couple of the galaxies are very interesting to me for their sheer distance from us.

Sh 2-212 is located high above the galactic plane in the outer galaxy. It contains the star cluster NGC 1624 and may be embedded in the same CO cloud as Sh 2-211.

The data for this photograph was acquired using Astro Photography Tool (APT 4.60) running on a NUC mounted to my OTA over the course of 4 nights in December 2024 using a Skywatcher Esprit 120ED telescope at 860mm fl, ASI2600MC camera cooled to 15f, aboard a Skywatcher Eq6r Pro mount. A touch over 10 hours of exposure.

Processed manually in Pixinsight. Steps included Image Calibration, Cosmetic Correction, Debayer, and SFS. This was followed by Star Align and SA Ref frame integration. Star Align used the reference frame. Lnorm Ref Frame integration and Local Normalization with a reference frame were also conducted. Image Integration and Drizzle Integration 1X were performed with a 0.9 drop with Lnorm data applied. The edges were cropped. Then, Image Solve and SpFC with filters were used. MsGC was applied, and Blurx Correction only was done. SPCC with background neutralization was followed by BlurX, NoiseX, and StarX. GHS was applied to the stars, and curves were adjusted for star saturation. GHS was applied to the starless image. Curves and mask iterations were used. LHE was performed. Finally, the stars were blended back into the starless image. Save as a Tiff for saving as a jpeg in PS Camera Raw.

Cheers!

Sh2-174 – Valentine Rose Nebula

Sh2 -174, The Valentine Rose nebula, is an unusual ancient planetary nebula visible in the constellation of Cepheus. A planetary nebula is created when a low-mass star blows off its outer layers at the end of its life. The core of the star remains and is called a white dwarf. Usually the white dwarf can be found very near the center of the planetary nebula. But in the case of Sh2-174 it off to the left. (PK120+18.1 is the very blue star near the center of the blue gas). This asymmetry is due to the planetary nebula’s interaction with the interstellar medium that surrounds it.

Sh2-174 ranks as the most northern Sharpless objects at 81 degrees north.

M 100 – Blowdryer Galaxy

Messier 100 (also known as NGC 4321 or the Blow Dryer Galaxy) is a grand design intermediate spiral galaxy. It is located in the southern part of the mildly northern Coma Berenices. It is one of the brightest galaxies in the Virgo Cluster. It is also one of the largest. The galaxy is approximately 55 million light-years from our galaxy.

It was one of the first spiral galaxies to be discovered. Lord William Parsons of Rosse listed it as one of fourteen spiral nebulae in 1850. NGC 4323 and NGC 4328 are satellite galaxies of M100. NGC 4323 is connected to M100 by a bridge of luminous matter.

Messier 100 is considered a starburst galaxy. The strongest star formation activity is concentrated in its center. This occurs within a ring, which is actually two tightly wound spiral arms. These are attached to a small nuclear bar with a radius of one thousand parsecs. Star formation has been taking place here for at least 500 million years in separate bursts.

As usual on spiral galaxies of the Virgo Cluster, the rest of the disk shows truncated star formation. It also contains neutral hydrogen. M100 is deficient in these elements compared to isolated spiral galaxies of similar Hubble type. This truncation is caused by interactions with the intracluster medium of Virgo.

This image was captured from my driveway in the hills of North Carolina in Bortle 4ish skies. It consists of 192 240″ exposures through an RC8 scope paired with an ASI071MC camera atop an Eq6r Pro mount. Image session management with APT 4.60 and processed manually in PixInsight.

NGC 2146 – Dusty Hand Galaxy

A bright moon and gusty winds didn’t deter the creation of this image. Poor seeing, operator error, and clouds for a couple of hours also didn’t stop it. This is most likely my last image of 2024. The forecast for clear nights after the full moon passes doesn’t look promising.

I present my version of the “Dusty Hand Galaxy.” Also known as NGC 2146, it is a barred spiral galaxy in the constellation Camelopardalis. It is unique due to the dusty spiral arm that is looping the core from our perspective. Potentially the result of a galaxy merge at its end stage. A result is intense star formation, to such an extent that NGC 2146 is referred to as a starburst galaxy. This is a common state for barred spirals. However, the extra gravitational disruption that NGC 2146 is enduring no doubt exacerbates the situation. This compression of hydrogen-rich nebulas triggers stellar birth.

Image acquisition via Astro Photography Tool (APT), processing with Pixinsight. RC8 telescope, ASI071MC camera, & Eq6r Pro mount.

Sh2-207 Faint Hii in Perseus

I choose to image this pair of Nebula while perusing images of the Sharpless Catalog online. I didn’t realize how faint and small they are at the time. This image integrates 7 hours of exposure. It uses a GSO RC8 at 1627mm fl and a ZWO ASI071MC camera atop a Skywatcher EQ6r Pro mount. All are controlled and integrated by APT, Astro Photography Tool.

Sharpless 2-207 is a star-forming region, similar to a miniature version of the Rosette Nebula. Despite its appearance, this is an HII region ionised by an O9.5 IV star and not a planetary nebula. The star cluster in the western part of the nebula is about 2-3 million years old. Its kinetic distance is about 4 kpc. The smaller H-II region Sharpless 2-208 is at about the same distance.

The nebulae Sh 2-207 and Sh 2-208 are located on the border of the constellation Camelopardalis to Perseus. The best viewing time is September to March, when the circumpolar constellation is at its highest. These are very dim and require long exposure and adequate focal length. They are surrounded by the Perseus hydrogen cloud but that would require much more integration time to bring out. Perhaps another year.

There’s not much else to say about a couple of balls of ionized hydrogen in space.

Sh2-188 Shrimp Nebula

Although it was included in the Sharpless Catalogue of Hii regions, it is actually a very dim planetary nebula. It is located at a distance of 711 light years from the Solar System in the constellation, Cassiopeia. Based upon its expansion rate it is thought to be about 7500 years old.

Planetary nebulae are formed when a star dies of “old age” and expels ionized shells of gas. The nebula is nearly circular in shape. It is much brighter to the southeast (lower right) because the central star is moving rapidly in that direction. Faint wisps of gas can also be seen in the opposite direction.

Planetary nebulae are usually symmetrical in shape, but that isn’t the case of Sh2-188. The Shrimp Nebula is believed to travel through space at an incredible rate. It moves about 300,000 miles per hour. It is also going through layers of the interstellar medium. This impacts the shape of the nebula and makes it asymmetrical. The bright part of the nebula is the bow shock. It occurs as a fast-moving planetary nebula interacts with the interstellar medium.

The Shrimp Nebula is not bright enough to be seen with the naked eye or binoculars. Its small size doesn’t help either. It is also very difficult to see with a telescope. This is particularly true if you are not observing from a very dark site far from light pollution. For imaging, a long focal length telescope on an equatorial mount is very helpful. And then a lot of exposure is required to bring out this dim PN.

APT is controlling the imaging sessions. This image represents about 20 hours of exposure. It uses a GSO RC8 at 1625mm fl and a ZWO ASI071MC camera. The setup is atop a Skywatcher EQ6r Pro mount. The Antlia quad-band light pollution filter was used in my bortle 4 sky.

Sh2-257

Stewart Sharpless of the U.S. Naval Observatory published his catalog of 313 HII regions in 1959. This image contains 5 of them.

Sh2-257 is a bright nebula in the star formation region Sh2-254 to Sh2-258. This region is part of the GEM OB1 molecular cloud. It is located on the border of the constellations Orion and Gemini.

SH2-255 is the small bright one to the right. Left of that in the middle is SH2-257, and SH2-254 is the largest. The two smaller ones are SH2-256 and SH2-258. Not much here for a wider field of view but the larger telescope can define the structure very well.