Our first Digital Image of 2022: here is IC 405, the Flaming Star Nebula.
The Flaming Star Nebula (IC 405) is a diffuse emission/reflection nebula in Auriga constellation. It surrounds the irregular variable star AE Aurigae, a runaway star believed to originate in the Orion Nebula area in the constellation of Orion. The nebula is approximately 1,500 light years distant. It is five light years across.
This was a particularly difficult object to process; I wanted to capture the faint blue reflection nebula surrounding the bright star (AE Aurigae), and I got very little in my narrowband images. So I reshot the target using standard RGB filters. I tried several combinations of data in the processing, but ended up with an RGBHOS configuration. This uses standard RGB exposures and mixes them in with the Hydrogen Alpha, Oxygen III, and Sulphur II, with Ha assigned to Red, Oxygen III assigned to Green, and Sulphur II assigned to Blue.
I still would like to have the blue reflection nebula stand out more. I keep all my raw image data so I can always add more time and reprocess. I think it needs more blue data.
Image Info
- Imaged from the KPO field in Saint Cloud, Florida.
- Camera : ZWO ASI1600MM Pro
- Lens: Canon 100-400 f/5.6L lens, set to 400mm
- Mount: iOptron SmartEQ Pro
- Red: 11 subframes of 300s = 55 min integration
- Green: 11 subframes of 300s = 55 min integration
- Blue: 12 subframes of 300s = 60 min integration
- Hydrogen Alpha: 13 subframes of 300s = 65 min integration
- Oxygen III: 23 subframes of 300s = 115 min integration
- Sulfur: 22 subframes of 300s = 110 min integration
- Total integration time: 395 min = 6.6 hours.
- Captured via ASIAir Pro automation
- Optical tracking via ASIAir automation, currently using ST4 mount control via the ASI120MM-S guide camera
- Separate channels stacked and SHO integrated in Astro Pixel Processor
- Final processing in Aperture