Category: Astronomy

I decided to spend Thanksgiving evening at the River Ridge Observatory shooting the North American Nebula (NGC 7000). I shot this nebula a few months ago but I decided to do so again to see what I’ve learned since then. The Moon was near full but I used my Optolong L-eNhance filter to restrict wavelengths to Hydrogen Alpha and Oxygen III. I used my C11 with Hyperstar, it was auto-guided and this image was made from 12 5-minute subs with flats and darks applied. All post processing was done in Photoshop. I was a little aggressive in processing to bring out the details in the center, but the reddish hue at top and bottom volunteered itself.

Wednesday night was a good night at the River Ridge Observatory. Crisp temperatures, no wind or dew, and clear steady skies. No technical difficulties either. My goal was to shoot the Heart and Soul Nebulas. Yes, that is their nicknames. Their official names are IC 1805 and IC 1848, respectively. Both are large emission nebulas, I suspect they are part of the same molecular cloud but I don’t know that for a fact. It’s kind of obvious why the one is the Heart Nebula while the other looks more like a fish to me, specifically a coelacanth, and what does a soul look like anyway? Or maybe a boot print in the snow.Both images were shot with my 11″ SCT with Hyperstar adapter to shoot at f/1.9 with the dual narrowband L-eNhance filter to select specific emission bands of light. 12 five minute images stacked together with flats and darks. Then virtually identical processing done in Photoshop.

I’ve already posted a couple images from Friday November 7, here is the last one. This is the Elephant’s Trunk Nebula (or IC 1396). I’ve been trying to make this presentable, it needs more data but it’s my first attempt at it. This was a total of 50 minutes integration with the 11″ and Hyperstar. That’s the trunk coming up from the bottom. I’ll keep working on it.