Here is the Spider & the Fly Nebula, also known as IC 417 (Spider; at center) and NGC 1931 (Fly; at bottom). Also in the image is NGC 1907; the small, tight cluster on the left. The bright area of nebulosity on the upper right is the edge of NGC 1893, the Tadpoles Nebula.
They are located approximately 10,000 and 7,000 light-years respectively from the Earth in the constellation Auriga. These two nebulae are composed of massive clouds of gas and dust and is an area of new stellar birth. The gas in the nebula is excited by a clusters of massive, relatively newly formed stars located near their centers.
This area within Auriga is home to many deep sky objects, as the Milky Way runs right through the center of the constellation.
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Image Info
- Imaged from the KPO field in Saint Cloud, Florida (Ha), and from Key West, Florida (OIII & SII).
- Camera : ZWO ASI1600MM Pro
- Lens: Canon 100-400 f/5.6L lens, set to 386mm
- Mount: iOptron SmartEQ Pro
- Hydrogen Alpha: 38 subframes of 300s = 190 min integration, assigned to Red
- Oxygen III: 19 subframes of 300s = 95 min integration, assigned to Green
- Sulphur II: 6 subframes of 300s = 30 min integration, assigned to Blue
- Total integration time: 315 min = 5.25 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 HOS integrated in Astro Pixel Processor
- Image cropped, stretched, and noise processed in Nebulosity
- Final processing in Aperture