Category: Astronomy

Last week, I shot this region, and more, with my Samyang 135mm and ZWO ASI294MC Pro. I knew right away that I needed more power as that scale was too small. Enter the C11 with Hyperstar and ZWO ASI533 MC Pro a week later. The scope has 3x+ the focal length and the camera a smaller FOV but also smaller pixels. This is two hours of five minute subs using an Antlia Triband Ultra RGB light pollution filter.

WR-134 is a Wolf-Rayet star (very large and very hot) with a strong stellar wind that is pushing interstellar gas away from it while also energizing that gas so that it glows with green Oxygen III light.

From the River Ridge Observatory.

This is my first attempt at the Wolf-Rayet star WR-134 in Cygnus. These are very large, very hot stars that correspondingly large stellar wind. It is not obvious here but the blue-green bow shock of that wind is visible in the upper right. Divide the picture into a rule of thirds, or tic-tac-toe, grid. There are four line intersections in that grid and the arc is visible in the upper right intersection of the lines. All of the other gas is reddish but this is not.

Now, for a more fanciful description, I see a face looking to the right. The face has a mouth and nose and is wearing steampunk style glasses. His left eyeglass frame is that bow shock.  He also has a laser pointer strapped to the other side of his glasses because he’s a steampunk/Borg crossover cosplayer.

This was made from four hours of five-minute subs, with my Samyang 135mm and ZWO ASI294 MC Pro on my AVX mount using an Antlia Quadband light pollution filter.

The aforementioned laser pointer is actually the Tulip Nebula and in the lower right is the Crescent Nebula. There are also two open star clusters near the center but how would you tell?

Shot Thursday night from the River Ridge Observatory. I can see now that I need to try this again with my Hyperstar C11 which has 3x plus the focal length and it would be a good match for that scope.