Tag Archives: FLT110

IC1396A – Elephant’s Trunk Nebula

Image centred at (nova.astrometry.net plate-solve):
RA: 21h 34m 17.296s
Dec: +57° 30′ 37.211″
Up is 2.19° E of N

IC1396 is a very large region of HII emission located in the Milky Way within Cepheus, which spans over 5 degrees of sky. Within IC1396, to the western side, is the Elephant’s Trunk Nebula, known as IC1396A, and VdB 142, which is a reflection nebula at the end of the “trunk”.

IC1396A - The Elephant's Trunk Nebula in Cepheus - LRGBIC1396A itself is a dense globule of gas and dust that appears to be lined by bright pink emission from atomic hydrogen. This emission is due to excitation by the giant triple star system HD 206267 (off field to the left). The globule appears to be an area of star formation, and contains two young stars in the head of the globule that have created a cavity by the action of their own stellar winds. 

These F-type stars provide the illumination for the rare yellow reflection nebula seen in the head of the globule, as well as the radiation causing the pink hydrogen emission within the cavity. The combined action of HD 206267 and the two young stars has resulted in areas of high compression in the nebula, triggering the formation of protostars.

Data was captured on the night of the 21st September 2017 from West Oxfordshire. Image details are as follows:

L:R:G:B = 130:45:35:35
(L:10m subs, RGB: 5m subs, 2x bin)

Taken using a WO FLT110 @ f5.6 with SBIG ST2000XM, on Losmandy Titan.

Processing was performed in Pixinsight – control over the star sizes is tricky here, and I may try and improve on this later. There’s also a (relatively) small amount of data used here – this is certainly a subject that would benefit from adding more exposure (which may also help with star control), as well as H-Alpha data to increase signal and contrast in the emission nebula areas.

Simeis 57 – Propeller Nebula in Cygnus

The Propeller Nebula (Simeis 57) in Cygnus - 7hrs ExposureI had opportunity on the 19th/20th September 2017 to add another 3h40m of exposure to my previous image of the Propeller Nebula (Simeis 57/ DWB111/119) – see “A Crescent and A Propeller” for the previous version. Here is the reprocessed version of the data, taken through an H Alpha filter, which is centered at RA: 20h 16m 08s, DEC: +43° 40′ 42″ (plate-solve from nova.astrometry.net).

Simeis 57 - Annotated with Simbad query resultsThe extra time on this subject has brought out some of the fainter background nebulosity and enhanced dark nebulae in the field. The image at left is an annotated image (using the Image Solver and Annotate Image scripts in Pixinsight). As shown, the Propeller itself is catalogued as DWB111 (south) and DWB 119 (north), with DWB118 representing the surrounding nebulosity, with DWB 108 further to the south below the southern “prop”. There are a few catalogued dark nebulae in the field – Dobashi 2501; Dobashi 2511/TGU H469 P16 which sits between DWB118 and DWB 107 (off field to lower left); and TGU H469 P18 to the west of the main nebula. 

For more information about this region, and pretty much the only bit of published research I can find on it(!), see the paper “Israel, F.P. , Kloppenburg, M., Dewdney, P.E., Bally, J. (2003), The peculiar nebula Simeis 57, Astronomy and Astrophysics, 398, 1063 – 1071“.

All data was taken from West Oxfordshire on 9th/10th and 19th/20th September. William Optics FLT110 @f5.6 on a Losmandy Titan, SBIG ST2000XM CCD and an Astrodon 5nm HA filter.

A Crescent and A Propeller

Two nights of H-Alpha deep-sky imaging recently and in both cases this had the advantage of allowing imaging despite a bright moon being present.

This was also the first time I got to use a new adaptor which connects the threaded drawtube of the FLT110 to the corrector/reducer. This appears to have reduced the amount of vignetting present and potentially dealt with a source of internal reflections, but more importantly it has eliminated a potential source of flexture by removing the 2″ nosepiece from the imaging train.   

The Crescent Nebula (NGC6888) in CygnusThe first image is of the Crescent Nebula (NGC6888) in Cygnus (image centered at RA 20h 12m 08s, Dec +38° 19′ 44″). The Crescent is an example of a Wolf Rayet nebula – the bright star HD192163 (also WR136, centre) is a massive star nearing the end of its short life. When becoming a red supergiant several hundred thousand years ago, it blasted away a shell of material weighing about 5 times the mass of our sun. This shell of material is impacted by the fast stellar wind, and excited by X-rays from the star’s surface, causing the glowing shell of gas we see today.  

The image above consists of 11 x 20min exposures taken on the night of the 8th/9th September 2017, using an ST2000XM, WO FLT110 at f5.6 and an Astrodon HA filter. These were all taken with the moon at ~85%, which shows that the H-Alpha filter did a great job of filtering out the unwanted moonlight, and letting the required wavelengths pass. 

The Propeller Nebula (Simeis 57) in CygnusThe second image is another region in Cygnus containing Simeis 57, the Propeller Nebula (image centred at RA 20h 16m 05s,
Dec +43° 41′ 05″). This is often mislabelled as DWB111, whereas that is only the southern (lower) half of the “propeller” (the other half is DWB119). Not a lot is known about the nebula – there isn’t a definitive distance, though it’s suspected that it is reasonably nearby, and it’s somewhat odd that given it’s distinctive shape and the fact it is reasonably bright in comparison to the surroundings, that it wasn’t included on other catalogues such as Sharpless-2. 

This image was 3h20min total (10x20min subexposures) with the same equipment as above taken on 10th/11th September 2017. These again were taken with the moon at ~75% full.  This could probably do with more exposure to help reduce the noise in the fainter regions (which are a bit marginal here), but cloud stopped play in the early morning for this one. 

 

Virgo Galaxy Cluster

Field centred at (platesolve by nova.astrometry.net):
RA: 12h 26m 15s
Dec:  +12° 52′ 36″
Up is -177 degrees E of N

M86/M84 Region of the Virgo Galaxy ClusterThe Virgo Galaxy cluster is a large nearby cluster of galaxies, that spans over 8 degrees of sky, and consists of over 1300 member galaxies. The cluster forms part of the Virgo super-cluster, of which the Local Group (with the Milky Way, M31, and M33) is an outlying member. 

The cluster is approximately 50MLy distant, and is comprised of three main clumps, with the image here displaying the M86 “subclump” of the “Virgo A” clump. M87 (Virgo A itself), is just off the frame to the lower left. The three largest galaxies in the image above are M86 (centre), M84 (right) and the interacting pair NGC 4435/4438 (left – otherwise known as “The Eyes”). These galaxies make up part of the famous “Markarian’s Chain” which is a series of bright galaxies extending off frame to the top left (north-east). Virgo Cluster - M86/M84 Region, Reverse AnnotatedAlso present in the image above are NGCs 4387, 4388, 4402, 4407, 4425, as well as several IC objects (including the odd blue irregular galaxy IC3355 at the top of the frame) and countless faint objects – some of which are highlighted in the annotated reversed image with galaxies highlighted from the SDSSR8 catalogue down to magnitude 20. 

“The Eyes” make an interesting pair – the smaller (NGC4435) is a barred lenticular galaxy (an intermediate between an elliptical and spiral). The larger NGC4438 is the most distorted of all galaxies in the cluster – with much of the disruption apparently caused by a past interaction with NGC4435. The detection of gas linking NGC4438 and M86 suggests that at some point all three galaxies have had past interactions. Additionally, there is some question as to whether the core of NGC4438 is powered by starburst (which may be as a result of the previous interactions), or whether it is home to an Active Galactic Nucleus, powered by a black hole. 

Data was taken over several nights during March and April 2017 from West Oxfordshire, UK using a WO FLT110, FLAT4 reducer, ST-200XM and Losmandy Titan. LRGB exposures were 240 (24x10min) : 75: 70 :70 (RGB in 5 min subs, 2×2 bin). Unfortunately, the flats didn’t reduce well here, so there was quite a bit of work in trying to eliminate gradients across the image – this may have restricted a little what I was able to pull out of the image data.

M48 – Open Cluster in Hydra

Field centred at (plate solve by nova.astrometry.com):
RA: 08h 13m 48s
Dec: -05° 44′ 32″
Up is 3.32 degrees E of N

M48 - Open Cluster in HydraFaintly visible to the naked eye, M48 is a large open cluster in the sprawling constellation of Hydra, the Water Snake. This was originally one of the “missing” Messier objects – Charles Messier catalogued this object some 5 degrees off in declination, but this cluster was independently observed by Caroline Herschel in 1783 – the connection between the two only being made some 150 years later than Messier’s original observation.

Interestingly, in this image, there is a hint of a nebular structure just to the right (west) of the cluster (about 75% of the way across the frame as shown). It’s hard to see if this is real, or an artefact due to inaccurate flat reduction/reflection – the only way to prove this is by taking deeper exposures, and moving the scope around to ensure no systematic errors. Given the poor weather prior to taking this image, it seems unlikely to happen in the near future!

Images were acquired on 24th March 2017 from West Oxfordshire, using an ST-2000XM through a WO FLT110 on a Losmandy Titan. Exposures were R:G:B = 90:70:70 in 5 min subs, with reduction and processing in Pixinsight and Photoshop.